Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Health (DOH) has failed to renew its memorandum of agreement with the Philippine Medical Association, Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines and Association of Hospital Administrators to establish express lane for people injected with Dengvaxia vaccine who would seek medical treatment, the Samahan ng mga Magulang, Anak at Biktima ng Dengvaxia on Sunday said.
Along with the group’s president, Sumachen Dominguez, volunteer-parent Rea Lyn Jusayan raised concern over the vaccine’s adverse effects on more than 800,000 children, including her child, and the non-renewal of hospital arrangements between the DOH and various medical facilities to treat children suffering from the ill effects of the anti-dengue vaccination in 2016 until 2017.
The parents appealed to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to look into the plight of those inoculated with the Dengvaxia vaccine, saying the DOH has neglected them because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
They anchored their fear on a November 2017 official statement of Sanofi Pasteur Inc., the vaccine manufacturer, posted on its official website that the vaccine had four adverse side effects — severe dengue, anaphylactic reaction, viscerotropism and neurotropism — on a person who is inoculated without a prior dengue infection even years after the inoculation.
Another member, Angelica Dioquino, said her daughter died after receiving the jab due to severe dengue infection.
“As a volunteer-parent, there are parents still approaching me for help but what can we do? There is no more Dengvaxia express lanes,” Jusayan told reporters.
“There are no more Dengvaxia surveillance officers,” she said.
Ian Colite of Imus City, Cavite, the father of Zandro whose death was also linked to the controversial Dengvaxia vaccine, questioned the Department of Justice’s National Prosecution Service for still filing Dengvaxia-related cases before the metropolitan trial courts, instead before the Supreme Court-designated family court in Quezon City.
He said the state prosecutors could face a disbarment case.