The 37-member Quezon City council has passed a resolution calling on the Department of Health to grant medical assistance to city residents inoculated with the Dengvaxia vaccine.
City Resolution 7469 stipulated that after the anti-dengue vaccine has been administered to school children, French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi Pasteur then announced that Dengvaxia could cause severe cases of dengue fever to those who had not been previously infected by the dengue virus.
“The city government with the aid of the Department of Health should extend medical assistance in order to alleviate the plight of the inoculated victims,” the resolution read.
In December 2017, as reported by Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, the latest data from the World Health Organization confirmed an “earlier hypothesis” that those inoculated with a dengue vaccine without prior infection could be at a higher risk of contracting more severe forms of the illness.
From April 2016, DoH reported more than 830,000 children have been vaccinated with Dengvaxia.
Meanwhile, Vice Mayor Joy Belmonte backed the enactment into law of the Philippine Identification System Act, saying “innocent citizens have nothing to fear with the national ID system.”
“I’m in favor of the national ID system because I think that it is important that every citizen has proper identification and can be traced. When a citizen has not done anything wrong, there is nothing to fear,” she said.
President Rodrigo Duterte signed the law designed to wipe out corruption and red tape, speed up the delivery of government services and assist law enforcement for public safety, despite concerns the national ID system may pose risks to privacy and data security.
“With this drive of the president to eradicate criminal activity, to eradicate terrorism, and to discipline our police, our regular citizens don’t need to fear that law enforcement agencies will abuse power and do something that’s not good to the citizens,” Belmonte said.
She said the roll-out of the system would be “very timely.”
