By Butch Fernandez and Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco
SEN. Richard Gordon sounded the alarm against a “quick-fix” resort to another mass vaccination with Dengvaxia amid another rise in dengue cases, saying this could be an even worse “disaster” than the spread of the disease itself.
The country’s Dengvaxia debacle should not be allowed to be a “forgotten disaster in dengue,” Gordon told the BusinessMirror Coffee Club Forum on Thursday.
He warned that the new upswing in cases should not be used as an excuse to resume mass vaccinations, especially among children. Dengvaxia was administered in 2016 to over 800,000 schoolchildren before the French multinational Sanofi-Pasteur disclosed that the vaccine could cause “severe disease” among those who have never been infected with dengue. It is effective, though, for those who have been afflicted before.
Gordon’s reaction was sought after Malacañang said the government was open to making the controversial dengue vaccine available again in the market.
A Senate Blue Ribbon Committee inquiry, chaired by Gordon, found apparent anomalies in the way the previous government handled the P3.5-billion procurement of the vaccines from French multinational Sanofi-Pasteur, with then-Health Secretary Janette Garin seen to have hastened the process by which regulators gave their stamp of approval to its mass use.
“If the government does decide to allow vaccination, it should not be administered in a buckshot manner,” Gordon told the BM Coffee Club, where he fielded questions from Philippine Graphic magazine, dwIZ and Pilipino Mirror.” We should do it the way others like Singapore do it,” on a limited scale and under close doctor’s supervision so that the background of the recipients is well assessed, said Gordon, also chairman of the Philippine Red Cross (PRC).
The Red Cross has in past months helped the DOH in administering measles vaccines to schoolchildren after epidemics of the highly contagious disease. Some quarters had said the measles outbreaks arose in part from declining support by parents for the government immunization program, as a result of the trauma from Dengvaxia.
The senator asserted that the “real solution to dengue is a massive cleanup,” noting that the dengue vector mosquito travels only 400 meters, so it should be easy to stop its spread if “everyone helps in cleaning up.” Gutters and eaves must be cleaned up, and things that store stagnant water, like old tires, should be turned upside down, he added.
At the same time, Gordon advised that people going to dengue hot spots also take precautions like wearing protective clothing or applying mosquito repellants.
Gordon said the Blue Ribbon panel gave copies of its report to the Justice department and the Ombudsman, citing the liabilities of then-President Benigno Aquino III, Garin, former Budget Secretary Florencio Abad and officials of regulatory agencies who cleared the mass use of Fengvaxia without a scaled-down clinical trial.
Meanwhile, the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) has spearheaded the filing of cases by parents who said their children died after being administered by Dengvaxia. Health experts, however, have not yet proven that several deaths were actually linked to Dengvaxia.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes