Apparently affected by fatalities related to influenza vaccination in Korea, the Singaporean and Malaysian health authorities recently recommended local medical institutions to halt inoculation using vaccines in question.

The two vaccines are SK Bioscience's SKYCellflu Quadrivalent and Sanofi Pasteur VaxigripTetra.

According to the Malaysia Free Today, a local media outlet, the Ministry of Health of Malaysia had asked all medical practitioners to take precautionary measures concerning these products. A ministry official was quoted as saying that there had been no deaths reported concerning the two vaccines, but the ministry decided to halt their use as a precautionary step.

The Malaysian move followed the example of its Singaporean counterpart. Singapore's Health Sciences Authority (HAS) announced the halt of the two vaccines last Sunday.

An official from SK Bioscience, the manufacturers SKYCellflu Quadrivalent, said that the company is well aware of the two countries' situations.

"We know that the announcements made by the two governments are recommendations to stop vaccination, not an across-the-board ban," the SK official told Korea Biomedical Review on Friday. "Malaysia’s decision seems to have been influenced by a similar move in Singapore."

The company is closely monitoring the situation, and it seems that these countries have made such a decision after deaths related to flu vaccines were reported in Korea, he added.

The official stressed that SK Biosciences expect that the two governments would make follow-up moves depending on the Korean government's ongoing investigations.

"We mainly focused on meeting the domestic demand this year and allotted insignificant amount to exports," he said. “As flu vaccine shipments to the two countries have almost been completed, our foreign shipment will not be affected much by this recommendation.”

Sanofi also said South Korean authorities are continuing their influenza vaccination program using all vaccines, including VaxigripTetra, and have not established any link between the death cases and influenza vaccination.

"The company has also not identified any quality or safety issues with its influenza vaccines distributed worldwide for the 2020 Northern Hemisphere influenza season," a company official said. 

Sanofi is in contact with Singaporean and Malaysian authorities and will answer any questions from them in line with information provided to South Korean health authorities, the official added. 

Korea has reported 72 deaths related to the influenza vaccination as of Wednesday.