SENATE President Aquilino Pimentel III on Sunday called on the Department of Health to not just ask for a refund on the unused dengue vaccines but for the cost of the entire contract.
Meanwhile, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III told dzBB radio that they were still waiting for the result of the evaluation of an expert panel from the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital on the deaths of 14 children who were vaccinated with the controversial dengue vaccine Dengvaxia.
He said the review results of the cases of 14 children might be released this week.
Pimentel’s statement came on the heels of the Health department’s announcement that it had issued demand letters asking Sanofi to refund the ₱1.4-billion cost of the vaccines that remained unused and to test the children who were given Dengvaxia.
“All the vaccines were defective from the very beginning. Therefore, under our laws, we should demand the whole ₱3.5 billion we paid them and not just part of it,” Pimentel said.
And even if Sanofi paid the full amount, Pimentel said, that would not release them from any liabilities that might arise from putting more than 800,000 children at risk from the vaccine.
In a letter sent to Thomas Triomphe, head of Sanofi Pasteur Asia Pacific, Duque laid down his demand for Sanofi to refund P1.4 billion that corresponds with the remaining unused vials of Dengvaxia.
His department has also sent another letter requesting Sanofi Pasteur to conduct serotesting of the more than 830,000 children vaccinated using a newly developed test to determine their pre-vaccination status at no cost to the government.
The department also requested documents on all the ongoing clinical trials and other studies involving Dengvaxia in the Philippines, including proof that they had passed ethics review standards of the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development.
Duque said his department had yet to receive an official response from Sanofi Pasteur on the demand letters.
The Philippines was the first country in Asia to approve the use of the vaccine.
The Health department halted its dengue vaccination program after Sanofi Pasteur released an advisory on Dengvaxia, which indicates potential risk to those who have not been exposed to dengue prior to immunization.
“The risk benefit ratio of Dengvaxia has significantly changed as the risk caused by the introduction of the vaccine to seronegative people has greatly outweighed its benefits, if any,” Duque said.
“The Dengvaxia vaccine which Sanofi Pasteur aggressively promoted and sold to the Philippine government has undeniably failed to deliver its supposed clinical benefit and safety claims, hence is considered defective under Philippine civil laws.”
Duque said based on official data from the Epidemiology Bureau, four out of the 17 deaths following the immunization of Dengvaxia were found to have died due to dengue shock. Other deaths were among children who had other illnesses and morbidities.
“Based on the Dengvaxia Surveillance Update on January 10, 2018 from the Epidemiology Bureau, four of the 17 cases being looked into identify dengue shock as cause of death,” Duque said.
The Health department said there was no conclusion yet on whether the administration of Dengvaxia caused the death of the vaccinees. A panel of PGH independent experts are now evaluating the clinical records of these cases.
“We cannot answer that as of now because our experts are still studying the clinical records,” Duque said.
“We welcome these investigations as complementary to our efforts in finding the truth about this matter.”