By Lira Dalangin-Fernandez,
Interaksyon
THERE IS NO EVIDENCE YET that would directly link Dengvaxia to the death of 39 individuals who earlier received the vaccine, Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III said Monday.
“As of latest count, 39 na ang naitala na pumanaw. Sa kasalukuyan, ito po ay iniimbestigahan. Ang mga ito ay nabakuhanan ng Dengvaxia ngunit hindi maaaring iugnay direktamente na ang pagkamatay ng 39 ay dahil sa Dengvaxia [Thirty-nine have been reported dead so far. Right now, this is being investigated. These people were injected with Dengvaxia but the deaths of the 39 cannot be directly concluded as having been caused by the vaccine],” he told the joint inquiry Monday by the House committees on good government and on health.
Mr. Duque said a task force formed under the Department of Health (DoH) is investigating the deaths with the assistance of the Philippine General Hospital (PGH). He said the department has submitted a copy of the report of the PGH to the Department of Justice, Senate and the House on the initial 14 deaths.
“The objective is to complement our findings. It doesn’t mean that because the Public Attorney’s Office has its own investigation, the PGH results are wrong, and vice-versa,” he said.
Mr. Duque appealed to all bodies conducting their respective investigations to work together.
“This is a huge challenge confronting not just the public health system, but the entire government. The right strategy is to have a whole of government approach. The pinpointing should end, we need to collaborate,” he said.
For his part, former president Benigno S.C. Aquino III said Monday that he would have stopped the administration of Dengvaxia had government been informed that the vaccine from Sanofi Pasteur could not completely shield the children from dengue.
“Ang pangako ng Sanofi, ginawa nila iyong vaccine para wala ng risk … Dati, meron kang vaccine good for all four serotypes … Noong 2017, iba na yata ang sinasabi, nadagdagan na ng kung hindi ka pa naimpeksyon ay pwedeng lumala … bigla na lang sasabihin nila pag nagkaroon ka ng vaccine na ito, wala ka paring proteksyon, parang nabaligtad sa sinabi nila noong una,” he said.
(Sanofi’s promise was they made the vaccine to eradicate the risk … Before, you had a vaccine good for all four serotypes … In 2017, they were saying something else, that if you had no prior information it might be worse … suddenly they said that even if you received the vaccine, you were still not protected, the opposite of what they said at first.)
“Sa baligtarang sagot, talagang dapat ihinto (On hindsight, it really should’ve been stopped) …” he told the hearing of the House of Representatives.
The former president also made a pitch to let only experts speak on the Dengvaxia issue to avoid spreading panic through unfounded conjectures that can only harm the public welfare.
“Silang mga aral at eksperto, sila po ang ating pagsalitain para mapayuhan tayo nang maayos (The learned and the experts, let them speak so we can be advised properly),” Aquino said at Monday’s hearing of the House of Representatives’ committee on good government and public accountability.
Former Budget secretary Florencio B. Abad, for his part, said funds were allocated only after the vaccine had been given a certificate of product registration by the Food and Drug Administration in December 2016.
At that time, he said the budget for 2017 had already been approved. Thus, Mr. Aquino had to approve the allocation of funds from government savings.
He said there was also a memorandum from the DoH stressing the need for the vaccine because of the high incidence of dengue.
