Sanofi tells Philippines no refund for used dengue vaccine

MANILA: French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi on Monday told the Philippines it would not refund the cost of used doses of a dengue vaccine after the vaccination program was suspended over health concerns. The Philippines had asked Sanofi to refund a total 3.2 billion pesos ($62 million) spent on the public vaccination program after the company said the vaccine could worsen symptoms in some cases, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said. Sanofi last month agreed to reimburse the Philippine government 1.6 billion pesos ($31 million) for leftover doses of Dengvaxia. But it said Monday it would not pay for doses that were already used. “Agreeing to refund the used doses of Dengvaxia would imply that the vaccine is ineffective, which is not the case,” Sanofi Pasteur said in a statement. The refund offered for unused Dengvaxia doses was not due to safety or quality concerns but simply to show that the company was cooperating with Manila, it added. Dengue or hemorrhagic fever, the world’s most common mosquito-borne virus, infects an estimated 390 million people in more than 120 countries each year, killing more than 25,000, according to the World Health Organization.

The Philippines has one of the highest dengue fatality rates in the world, with 732 deaths last year, the country’s health department said. The country launched the world’s first public dengue vaccination program in 2016, but suspended it and stopped the sale of Dengvaxia in December after Sanofi warned that the injections could make symptoms worse for vaccinated people who contracted the disease for the first time. The announcement caused panic among parents of some 830,000 school children vaccinated under the public dengue immunization programme in 2016 and 2017, the health department said.