Surigao del Sur 2nd district Rep. Johnny Pimentel says he and his fellow solons are counting on the Department of Health (DOH) to come up with a report on the impact of the controversial vaccine Dengvaxia, especially with the spike in dengue fever cases.
Of special interest are cases involving children who contracted the mosquito-borne virus for the first time despite receiving Dengvaxia shots, Pimentel said.
He said Congress wants to ascertain the estimated number of Filipino children who had no prior dengue infection, but who received Dengvaxia shots anyway under a school-based public immunization program launched by the past administration in April 2016. A total of 106,630 dengue cases were reported countrywide from January to June this year, up 85 percent from the 57,564 listed in the same semester in 2018. At least 456 deaths were tallied in the first semester, up 43 percent from the 317 logged in the same period in 2018, the DOH said.
“Dengvaxia is not approved for use in individuals not previously infected by any dengue virus serotype or for whom this information is unknown. This is because in people who have not been infected with dengue virus, Dengvaxia appears to act like a first dengue infection – without actually infecting the person with wild-type dengue virus – such that a subsequent infection can result in severe dengue disease,” the US drug regulator said when it approved the vaccine with major restrictions.
The plaintiffs are seeking reparation from respondents Sanofi Pasteur, the French maker Dengvaxia, and distributor Zuellig Pharma Holdings Pte. Ltd. The program was abandoned in December 2017, when adverse findings against the world’s first anti-dengue vaccine first became public. By then, some 730,000 school children were already vaccinated with Dengvaxia.
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