THE Health department last week suspended the use of a new vaccine for the dengue virus that has already been administered to more than 700,000 children, after its manufacturer, Sanofi, warned that it could lead to more severe symptoms for people who had not previously been infected.
The admission by the French pharmaceutical giant that its Dengvaxia vaccine is more risky for people who have not been infected is alarming, because vaccines are normally given with the expectation that they will prevent disease from infecting the vaccinated, not increase the severity of the disease once it is contracted.
The announcement also highlights the haste—some would say recklessness—with which officials from the previous administration had contracted with Sanofi to buy P3.5 billion worth of the vaccine to prevent the spread of the mosquito-borne disease.
The vaccine was approved for sale in the Philippines a few weeks after then President Benigno Aquino III received executives from the company while he was in Paris, France, in December 2015, and just months before his term expired.
In April 2016, the Department of Health launched the dengue vaccination initiative in three highly endemic regions—including Metro Manila—with over 700,000 individuals receiving at least one dose of the vaccine.
Certainly with what we know today, government officials from the previous administration had acted with undue haste in using an untested vaccine on so many people.
The chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, Senator Richard Gordon, certainly thinks so.
He said an official of the World Health Organization had warned that the vaccine had not been given pre-qualification approval as it had not yet been tested on at least 200 children first, at the time it was procured by the Aquino administration.
“This admission by Sanofi that the Dengvaxia poses risks shows that when the Aquino administration procured it and the DoH proceeded to inoculate 280,000 children initially, the vaccine was not yet ready for distribution. Now we have the evidence on that,” the senator said.
“Before we conducted an investigation on the anomalous procurement of this vaccine, we talked to several health experts and they told us that they had already warned government long before about the possible adverse effect of the new drug on individuals with no prior history of dengue. With this admission by Sanofi, they have been proven right,” he added.
Gordon has filed a resolution for a congressional inquiry into what he calls a midnight deal to procure the vaccine. Health officials are now consulting with experts and the WHO on what to do about the risks facing the more than 700,000 people who have already been given the vaccine. If it becomes apparent in the upcoming probe that the health of children was recklessly put at risk, those responsible for doing so must be held accountable.
