A medico-legal consultant of the Public Attorney’s Office on Sunday renewed his call for the resignation of Health Secretary Francisco Duque for allegedly making it difficult to achieve transparency on Dengvaxia cases in the country.
Dr. Erwin Erfe slammed the issuance of Department of Health Administrative Order No. 2018-0011 which required autopsies on possible Dengvaxia-related deaths to be performed only by the DoH.
“This administrative order makes it difficult to access all documents related to Dengvaxia,” Erfe said.
“DoH had ensured that information relative to Dengvaxia will be beyond the reach of victims, the PAO and other law enforcement agencies investigating the Dengue vaccine mess,” he added.
Erfe said the autopsy of 40 children and a police officer showed a pattern of deaths after having received Dengvaxia vaccine shots.
He appealed to Duque to create a team of medical experts to treat dengue victims who received Dengvaxia shots instead of autopsy teams.
Earlier, the head of the House committee on appropriations filed a bill seeking to allocate a P1.16-billion special fund to help the children who were administered the controversial Dengvaxia anti-dengue vaccine.
Rep. Karlo Alexei Nograles said the money will come from the refund for some P1.16-billion worth of unused vials that was returned to the government by Dengvaxia manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur through its local distributor Zuellig Pharma.
Nograles proposed the P1.16 billion be used to finance the medical support for the children who were administered the Dengvaxia vaccine, such as medical assistance for hospitalization, medical kits, out-patient care services and laboratory tests.
“This will ensure prompt delivery of necessary medical assistance to Dengvaxia vaccinees even as the Department of Health continues to monitor their state in the months following their inoculation,” Nograles said.
Dengvaxia, a relatively new drug manufactured by Sanofi Pasteur, was used in a P3-billion mass anti-dengue vaccination program near the end of the Aquino administration in April 2016. This made the Philippines the first country in the world to do so.
In November 2017, the French pharmaceutical firm released the results of its long-term follow-up study that showed Dengvaxia gave an increased risk in those who were not yet infected with dengue at the time of first vaccination.
More than 830,000 Filipino school children have already been given Dengvaxia shots. Of those, at least 39 had died, Duque told a joint House panel on Feb. 26.