Syrian Coalition: Investigations Underway to Determine Individuals Responsible for the Children Deaths

Nasr al-Hariri, Secretary General of the Syrian Coalition and head of the special commission of inquiry into the disaster of the anti-measles vaccination campaign, continues to interrogate the officials who carried out and supervised the immunization campaign. The commission includes Jawad Abu Hatab, head of the medical committee, Hisham al-Dairi, former director of the vaccination program in the Syrian Ministry of Health, Abdul Jalil al-Hariri, chairman of the Syrian Bar Association, Muhannad Abdul Qadir, secretary of the Syrian Coalition’s medical committee, and Ahmed Turkawi, a pharmacist. Hariri stresses that “we must keep track of the issue and find out the cause of the deaths to bring those responsible to account, whether the deaths were a result of negligence or any other reason. Suhair al-Atassi, head of the Assistance Coordination Unit (ACU) stressed that “all the vaccines we received were intact and did not contain any contaminated doses” during her meeting with the commission members. The commission began a series of meetings with the persons who directly supervised the vaccination campaign to find out the reason that led to the humanitarian catastrophe. Hariri pointed out that the Investigations are underway and that the preliminary results will not be published until the commission finishes the investigations in the coming couple of days. “We promise that we will bring to account those responsible for this disaster and do justice to the victims. We quite understand how one feels when he risks his life to inject life in the bodies of children, but suddenly finds out that he inadvertently planted the seeds of death instead. (Source: Syrian Coalition)