Suspected Dengvaxia deaths climb to 26

MANILA, Philippines — Five more children vaccinated with Dengvaxia died, bringing the death toll believed to be related to the controversial anti-dengue vaccine to 26, the Department of Health (DOH) reported yesterday.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, however, maintained that experts could not yet determine whether the deaths were indeed caused by the dengue vaccine.

In a press conference, DOH Undersecretary Maria Francia Laxamana said the department has already recorded a total of 26 deaths among children vaccinated with Dengvaxia from March 2016 to January 2018.

“As of January 24… we have admitted cases of 725 and out of that, we have (26 deaths) from March 2016. Since last week until this week, we have another five deaths,” Laxamana said.

Of the 725 so-called adverse effects following immunization cases, Laxamana said only 412 were confirmed to be dengue while the rest tested negative for the mosquito-borne infection.

Duque, however, stressed that there have been dengue mortality even before the Dengvaxia immunization campaign of the government.

“Even without Dengvaxia, there is a case fatality ratio and in dengue, the case fatality ratio is still below one percent,” Duque said.

But Duque said the previous administration could have exercised prudence and should have waited for the completion of the clinical trial before embarking on dengue immunization drive.

“The clinic trial started sometime June 2011 and that’s supposed to be a six-year study for the Phase 3 clinical trial period. They started giving the Dengvaxia as early 2016, while the findings on the severe dengue came out after they concluded the Phase 3 in September of 2017,” Duque said.

“So if they had waited till 2017, then they would have known they can’t give these Dengvaxia to children who never had dengue in the past, because that is exactly what the advisory of Sanofi says,” Duque explained.

Based on the records they have gathered, Duque said, it appeared that Dengvaxia manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur did not disclose vital information that could have prevented health authorities from launching the dengue immunization program.

Duque said the panel of experts from the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) is set set to convene today and come out with the results of their audit on the medical records of the children who allegedly died after dengue vaccination.

He said the DOH is also inviting the forensic experts from Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) to join the PGH panel so they could harmonize their findings.

“It will be ideal if PAO will be there because there will be alignment of findings between PAO forensics and PGH task force, which did the audit of the clinic charts,” Duque said.