The Department of Health welcomes the Senate approval of the P1.16-billion supplemental budget to assist children vaccinated with Dengvaxia.
“We are very pleased with the recent approval by the Senate of the DoH budget proposal which will certainly benefit, primarily the Dengvaxia-vaccinated children including their respective families. We deeply commend our Honorable Senators for this development,” said Health Secretary Francisco Duque III.
Duque said majority of the budget or some P945.8 million would be allocated for the medical assistance program for Dengvaxia recipients seeking treatment, either confined at a hospital or outpatient.
He also said P148.3 million would be spent on the assessment and monitoring of Dengvaxia recipients and for supplies and medicines; and P67.6 million would be used in the deployment of health workers, who would follow up on complaints of the vaccine recipients.
The budget represents the amount refunded by Sanofi Pasteur to the DoH for the unused Dengvaxia vaccines that were returned.
After having been approved by both chambers of Congress, the said bill is now up for the President’s approval and automatically becomes a law 15 days after publication in the major broadsheets.
The use of the said fund is broken down into the following: 81 percent will be for medical assistance program of Dengvaxia-vaccinees, 13 percent will be for public health management, and 6 percent for human resource for health development.
Senator Loren Legarda, sponsor of the bill and chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, said the measure would provide medical assistance for hospitalization and out-patient care services to all dengue patients, including those who received the Dengvaxia vaccine.
“Through this, we hope to, somehow, allay fears of the almost 900,000 individuals who were administered with the Dengvaxia vaccine,” she said.
The senator noted that the Senate version, in fact, widened the scope of the medical assistance program, in terms of beneficiaries as well as covered areas.
The DoH will issue the guidelines for the availment of the medical assistance program.
The funding, which will come from the amount refunded to the Philippine Government by Dengvaxia manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur, through its local distributor Zuellig Pharma, is valid until December 31, 2019.
Meanwhile, Legarda emphasized she would oversee the utilization of funds to ensure that the medical assistance needed by dengue patients is properly given.
“The health of our people deserves to be on top of government priorities. We need to ensure that dengue patients are helped, processing is fast, monitoring is accurate and, hopefully, prevent further deaths and illnesses of those administered with the vaccine,” Legarda said.