Two of 14 child deaths may have been caused by ‘vaccine failure’ – DOH
Three of the 14 children who were given Dengvaxia shots died of dengue, the Department of Health (DOH) confirmed on Friday. Of the three victims, the two deaths “may be on account of vaccine failure. Therefore, further testing of tissue samples and
anti-bodiesis also necessary in these cases to complete the investigation,” Health Undersecretary Enrique Domingo said.
The results of the review conducted by the University of the PhilippinesPhilippine General Hospital-Dengue Investigative Task Force (UP-PGH-DITF) on the first 14 reported Dengvaxiaassociated deaths were disclosed by the DOH Friday.
“Since December 2017, under the new DOH administration, we have started to address the issues surrounding Dengvaxia – a new vaccine which was given to more than 830,000 children from March 2016 to October 2017. The DOH recognizes that these issues continue to cause fear and confusion especially to our parents whose children were given Dengvaxia. We, therefore, wish to clarify this matter through a transparent and objective report based on scientific evidence which is now guiding the DOH in finding solutions on the matter,” Domingo said.
PGH-DITF Head Juliet Sio-Aguilar however,stressed they cannot categorically say that Dengvaxia was responsible for the three deaths.
“We cannot say anything, but we can say that they contracted dengue, the wild type. All of them succumbed to the dengue wild type virus,” Aguilar said.
“It takes a long process to understand what happened to a patient. Out of the 14, only three had dengue, one of them had antibodies and protection. We want to find out why it happened,” she added.
Other cases Aside from the three, three other cases were found to be coincidental because there was inconsistent causal association to immunization
“Tatlo sa 14 na kasong pagkamatay ay walang kinalaman sa Dengvaxia o nagkataon lang na ang nabakunahan ay nagkaroon ng ibang malubhang sakit na hindi dulot ng bakuna (Dengvaxia had nothing to do with the three other deaths and it was just a coincidence that those who were vaccinated had other severe illnesses that was not caused by the vaccine),” Domingo said.
“Two cases were unclassifiable due to inadequate information available,” he added.
Six other cases are those of children who died 30 days after getting Dengvaxiashots.
“Ang kinamatay nila ay hindi dengue at walang tiyak na ebidensiya na ito ay konektado sa Dengvaxia (They did not die of dengue and there is no evidence that it is related to Dengvaxia),” Domingo disclosed.
“The DOH will now hand over the PGH-DITF report and the National Expert Panel reports to the Department of Justice so that they may use them in the fulfillment of their mandate to investigate and prosecute those who are possibly accountable,” he added.
The DOH tapped the UP-PGH to provide an independent review and assessment on the probable cause of death of children who were vaccinated with Dengvaxia.
Aguilar said they used the World Health Organization (WHO) Algorithm for Causality Assessment of Adverse Events Following Immunizations (AEFI).
“May 10-man team, divided into two groups. Each group handled seven cases paramasmabilis. Angbinigayng DOH, two weeks lang. Bawat member ng team, individually inaral… After, idiniscuss with smaller teams.After that, babalikan iyong buong team.Tatlong beses pinag-aralan bawat kaso. All of us agreed with these findings,” Aguilar said describing the process.