Nepali government has suspended the import and use of over 2.7 million pandemrix vaccines manufactured by a global company for protecting people from influenza - A/H1N1, generally known as swine flu.

According to Sunday"e;s Republica daily, the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) decided to immediately suspend import of pandemrix vaccines on the basis of its intra-ministry technical panel"e;s recommendations following reports of complications.

Some A/H1N1 flu patients have reportedly suffered symptoms of neurolepsy disease after receiving pandemrix vaccines manufactured by the GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) -- a global pharmaceutical firm -- in some European countries.

"We will import pandemrix vaccines only if the World Health Organization (WHO)"e;s investigation clearly reveals that GSK"e;s vaccines do not have anything to do with neurolepsy symptoms," said Dr Laxmi Raj Pathak, spokesperson at the MoHP.

According to Dr Pathak, WHO has already constituted a committee to investigate the possibility of pandemrix vaccines"e; complications in A/H1N1 flu patients.

In the Netherlands, the UK and Sweden, according to Dr Pathak, some A/H1N1 flu patients, who received GSK-pandemrix vaccines, have suffered numbness while moving hands, legs and tongues. However, it is yet to be proved by independent investigation that the numbness in A/H1N1 patients was a side-effect of GSK-pandemrix vaccines.

Avian Influenza Control Project at the Department of Health Services was set to administer pandemrix vaccines to 2.7 million people -- approximately 10 percent of the total population -- within three months from September.

Source:Xinhua