THE University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital will help the government in validating the deaths of children vaccinated with the dengue vaccine Dengvaxia, the Department of Health announced Thursday.
Health Secretary Dr. Francisco Duque III told a news conference the UP-PGH would conduct a third-party independent review of cases forwarded to the agency to “erase doubts from other sectors that the DoH may be concealing information relevant to Dengvaxia vaccination.”
Health Undersecretary Herminigildo Valle said the department’s Epidemiology Bureau had received information on 133 cases of students hospitalized after vaccination; 36 were hospitalized due to dengue short of reporting they contracted severe dengue.
No timeline could be given on the processing of the cases, but Health Undersecretary Rolando Domingo gave assurances they were collating information on all known cases for UP-PGH to review.
Once we have this, I think we’re thinking of three cases that we might be referring for review, for the clinical side. If needed, we have two forensic pathologists at PGH who will be working with us,” Domingo said.
Results will be released two weeks after UP-PGH conducts its own clinical review of the cases.
The advantage of having PGH is they have multispecialists, and they are people who are the best in their fields,” Domingo added.
Malacañang and vaccine manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur assured the public Dengvaxia itself did not cause severe dengue or other illnesses.
All 830,000 students in Regions III, IV-A, and the National Capital Region who received the dengue vaccine will be monitored.
Sanofi Pasteur disclosed last month that Dengvaxia might cause serious illness in subjects who have yet to be infected by dengue prior to vaccination.