Federal officials paused administration of a vaccine against the chikungunya virus for some adults because post-vaccination problems may be related to the shot, regulatory authorities said on June 5.
Seventeen serious adverse events—including two deaths—had been reported by early May among people who received the chikungunya vaccine.
“FDA’s pause is intended to allow the agency time to adjudicate these events and ascertain whether additional, unreported adverse events exist,” Dr. Vinay Prasad, the Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine official, and two other FDA officials said in an article published by the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Attributing the events to vaccination requires looking at various factors, including whether vaccine recipients were also infected with chikungunya, the officials said….