Jakarta (ANTARA) - Spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, remarked that a child suspected of having died of acute hepatitis had not received the COVID-19 and hepatitis vaccines.
Earlier, the Ministry of Health increased vigilance against a mysterious form of acute hepatitis on account of the deaths of three children undergoing treatment for suspected acute hepatitis at the Dr Ciptomangunkusuma Hospital, Jakarta.
"What we know is the patients were already in an advanced stage when they arrived at the hospital, thereby giving little time to the hospital to save them," Tarmizi noted during a virtual press conference on Thursday.
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Tarmizi revealed that one of the three patients, aged two years, had not received the COVID-19 and hepatitis A-E vaccines. The other patient, aged eight years, had received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while the other one, aged 11 years, had received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The three patients had tested negative for COVID-19 based on the hospital's examination, she stated.
The Ministry of Health, along with the Jakarta Provincial Health Office, had conducted contact investigation to determine the risk factors in the patients.
"From the available data, one patient had had another disease before being diagnosed with suspected acute hepatitis," she noted.
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The spokesperson remarked that so far, the Ministry of Health had not classified the incidents as cases of severe acute hepatitis, as there is still an advanced phase of investigation in the form of laboratory tests, especially the examination of Adenovirus and Hepatitis E, which takes 10-14 days.
According to Tarmizi, there was no family history of congenital hepatitis disease found in the three patients.
The main symptoms experienced by the patients were severe nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, she remarked.
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