Even though the U.S. is in the midst of a recall of over a million doses of a childhood vaccine because of the risk of contamination, Canadian parents need not be concerned, says Health Canada.
"The Merck Hib (haemophilus influenzae type B) vaccine — Liquid PedvaxHIB — is approved for use in Canada, but has not been actively marketed by the company in Canada and is not used by [any] province and territory in publicly funded immunization programs," Alain Desroches, a spokesman for the Public Health Agency of Canada, told CBC.ca Thursday in an e-mail.
Hib is part of a vaccine combination that also includes protection against diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis and polio. It is administered to toddlers at two, four, six and 18 months of age.
Desroches said that in Canada, vaccination programs use either Pentacel or Pediacel, made by Sanofi Pasteur, or Infanrix-IPV+Hib, supplied by GlaxoSmithKline.
"Some small quantities of stand-alone Hib vaccine are also used, but, again it is vaccine that is supplied by either Sanofi Pasteur or GlaxoSmithKline," said Desroches.
Merck & Co. advised the public of the recall Wednesday after it discovered a sterilization problem in a Pennsylvania factory. The company said yesterday that there was no contamination found in the vaccine itself.
The U.S. recall involves 10 lots of Hib vaccine and two lots of a combination vaccine for both Hib and hepatitis B, a Merck spokeswoman said.
"Those products are not distributed in Canada, so this is a U.S.-only recall,'' said Merck Frosst Canada spokesman Vincent Lamoureux. "There is no link to our business in Canada.''
On Tuesday, Health Canada warned provinces and territories not to use another Merck Frosst product — three lots of measles, mumps and rubella vaccine — while it investigates five suspected cases of anaphylaxis in Alberta patients. All the patients were young adults who had a previous history of allergy.
The five cases were associated with lot 1529U of MMR-II vaccine.
With files from the Canadian PressRelated
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