A US-backed study in Guinea-Bissau on the effects of the hepatitis B vaccine birth dose has been suspended pending a technical review, the director general of Public Health of Guinea-Bissau said on Thursday.
“We don’t have technical evidence from the ethical committee to make a decision,” Director General Armando Sifna said through a translator during a press conference hosted by the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We canceled the trial because our national ethical committee did not have the required technical resources.”
The hepatitis B vaccine study, which was set to be carried out by a Danish research group and funded in part by a $1.6 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was criticized by public health experts for withholding the hepatitis B vaccine birth dose from some infants in order to determine whether the timing of the vaccine affected their health.