The relatives of eight children whose deaths were linked to the Dengvaxia vaccine flocked to the Quezon City Regional Trial Court during the presentation of their last witness, Dr. Erwin Erfe.
Sumachen Dominguez, Samahan ng mga Magulang Anak ay Biktima ng Dengvaxia president, and the other parents were accompanied by members of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption.
Erfe, Public Attorney’s Office forensics chief, went through an intense cross-examination on Monday. The hearing before the sala of Branch 229 Judge Maria Luisa Leslie Gonzales-Betic started at 9 a.m. and ended at 7 p.m.
Erfe, accompanied by some PAO lawyers, declined to comment as to what had transpired during the hearing.
One of the parents of the Dengvaxia victims said Erfe told the court about his findings on all of the eight children he had autopsied.
“That’s why the cross-examination lasted 10 hours,” he said.
Erfe earlier said all the victim suffered from enlargement of organs and severe bleeding in the brain, lungs, liver, kidneys, spleen and intestines.
State prosecutors filed eight counts of reckless imprudence resulting in homicide before Gonzales-Betic.
The principal accused, former health secretary Janette Garin, now Iloilo representative, and other respondents would also be given the chance to present their evidence and witnesses, too.
With help from PAO, the parents of about 160 children filed separate criminal charges against Garin, and other former and current officials of the Department of Health, Food and Drug Administration, Philippine Children’s Medical Center and Research Institute for Tropical Medicine before the Department of Justice.
In November 2017, Sanofi Pasteur Inc., the manufacturer of the Dengvaxia vaccine, said dengue-naïve people who received the vaccine could be vulnerable to more severe infections.
DOH procured the vaccines for P3.5 billion for the school-based mass vaccination of children in 2016 until 2017.