Woman found dead after getting flu vaccine shot

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A septuagenarian was found dead inside her home in the southwestern province of North Jeolla on Tuesday after getting a flu vaccine shot at a neighborhood clinic the previous day, provincial officials said.

The 78-year-old resident of Gochang, about 300 kilometers south of Seoul, was discovered dead at her rural home by one of her neighbors around 7:35 a.m.

The woman reportedly received a seasonal flu vaccine shot from a neighborhood clinic at 8:30 a.m. on Monday, prompting local quarantine authorities to investigate any causality between her death and the vaccine shot.

The vaccine in question is said to be a Boryung Fluvaccine produced by local vaccine producer Boryung Biopharma.

The incident came after a teenage boy in Incheon, west of Seoul, died last Friday after being administered a seasonal flu vaccine two days earlier. The cause of the boy's death has not yet been determined, triggering public anxiety over the safety of flu vaccines. Last month, a local drug distributor came under fire for exposing some of its flu vaccine bottles to room temperatures during shipping.

A health official at the North Jeolla provincial government said any link between the Gochang resident's death and her flu vaccine shot has not been determined and a related investigation is still under way.

"It has been found that the deceased had suffered from several chronic diseases and took blood pressure medications before her death. It's too early to tell if the flu vaccine was a direct cause of her death," the official said. (Yonhap)


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