Two Chinese people have been reported dead after they received vaccination against the A/H1N1 influenza, Deng Haihua, spokesman of the Ministry of Health said Friday.

Yet China's A/H1N1 vaccines are generally safe as the incidence rate of reported rarely seen abnormal reactions was only 1.3 in 100,000, said Liu Dawei, an official in charge of vaccination with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Deng did not give any personal details of the two patients.

Autopsy of one of the dead showed the patient suffered a sudden cardiac death, a term referring to natural deaths from cardiac causes, according to a statement posted on the website of the ministry.

"Experts have basically ruled out the possibility that the patient's sudden death was the result of immediate allergic reactions to the flu vaccines," it said, adding that the experts were till waiting for more lab test results.

Autopsy of another dead person would be conducted on Friday night, the ministry said.

Deng said that a very few cases of severe abnormal reactions and a very few coincidences related with basic diseases were inevitable in China, considering more than 10 million Chinese have so far received the home-made vaccines.

As of Friday afternoon, the Chinese mainland has reported close to 66,000 cases of the A/H1N1 flu, of which 43 were fatal.

Chinese health authorities have already inoculated more than 13 million people with the China-made A/H1N1 flu vaccines by Friday noon, the ministry said.

A total of 1,235 people who had received the vaccines were suspected to have abnormal reactions from the vaccines by Wednesday, according to Liu Dawei, an official in charge of vaccination with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Among them, 950 were suffering from "ordinary reactions" such as fever and local swellings, Liu said. He noted that 143, however, were suffering from some "comparatively rarely seen abnormal reactions," according to Liu.

He did not give any details as to the "rare" abnormal reactions, but revealed that 15 people had suffered from relatively serious abnormal reactions such as anaphylactic shocks and allergy-induced laryngeal edema.

He said thirty-one suspected cases of abnormal reactions were currently under medical investigation, Liu said, adding that the rest of the cases were just coincidences or the result of psychological factors.

Liu said that the statistics show China's A/H1N1 vaccines are generally safe. "The vaccine itself won't lead to A/H1N1 cases, " Liu stressed.

He said if experts proved that damages were caused by abnormal reactions, the patients would be compensated according to relative regulations.

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