Cancer vaccine jab blamed for death of girl 5 days later
THE family of a 13-year-old girl who died five days after having the cervical cancer jab yesterday blamed the vaccine for her death.
Shazel Zaman suffered a severe headache, vomiting and dizziness after being given the HPV vaccination, and was taken to hospital.
But relatives say doctors dismissed her as ‘lazy’ and sent her home. Hours later she was found unconscious with no pulse. Her family have demanded to know why she did not receive more urgent treatment.
It is estimated that the HPV jab, offered to girls aged 12 and 13 in the form of two injections, will save 400 lives a year by preventing cervical cancer – the most common type among women under 35.
But some claim it is linked to major sideeffects, including chronic pain and tiredness.
Regulators say there is no evidence of any deaths or serious illness as a result of the vaccine. Shazel, described as healthy and active, initially showed no ill-effects after her second course of the HPV vaccine at Derby High School in Bury, Greater Manchester, on April 13. But two days later her right arm became sore and reddened, her sister Maham Hussain, 19, said.
‘On the Saturday [April 16] she complained of a severe headache, and by the evening she was throwing up,’ Miss Hussain said. Shazel became weak and drowsy the next day, so her aunt Saimah Naseem took her to A&E at Fairfield Hospital.
Her sister added: ‘Whilst she was there she was in and out of consciousness.’ Miss Hussain said Shazel fell out of a wheelchair at the hospital, at which the doctor said she ‘ came across as a lazy child’.
‘I was shocked. That was a horrible thing to say,’ her aunt said. ‘One of the nurses made the comment, “She’s fine”.’
Shazel was sent home with medication for a suspected stomach bug, to her mother
‘Perfectly normal before that’
Nazia Shaheen. The girl’s sister said: ‘An hour later she went blue. She had no pulse.’
Paramedics tried to revive her, but Shazel was pronounced dead in hospital later that evening – just five days after having the jab. Neither a CT scan nor a privately funded MRI scan were able to find a cause of death, the family said. They were told it will be months before the results of a postmortem examination.
Miss Hussain said: ‘The family strongly believe that there is a link between her death and the vaccination. Before that she was perfectly normal, and active … I don’t think the hospital took her seriously.’
Gill Harris, of Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Fairfield, said it had begun a ‘full clinical review to examine the circumstances surrounding Shazel Zaman’s death’.
A Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency spokesman said there was ‘no suggestion from safety monitoring so far that the vaccine has been responsible for any deaths’.