Philippines weighs reuse of controversial dengue shot

Ebola epidemic spreading

MANILA, Aug 3, (Agencies): The Philippines is considering re-introducing a dengue vaccine whose use it halted because of links to the deaths of several children, as authorities battle to contain a dengue outbreak that has killed more than 450 people this year.

Concerns over dengue immunization for nearly 734,000 children aged nine or older sparked two congressional inquiries, a criminal investigation and a sharp fall in the number of parents seeking routine vaccinations for their children.

If the government decided to revive the use of Dengvaxia, developed by French drugmaker Sanofi, it would be administered with “utmost caution”, presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said.

“If Dengvaxia is proven effective to those who already had dengue in the past, then its application to these individuals will surely cause the decline of the overall number of cases,” he told reporters.

Distributing

The Philippines stopped using Dengvaxia in late 2017 and ordered Sanofi to stop selling, distributing and marketing it after Sanofi warned the vaccine could worsen the disease in some cases.

In March, the Department of Justice said it had found probable cause to indict Sanofi officials, and former and current Philippine health officials, over 10 deaths it said were linked to the use of Dengvaxia, which Sanofi has repeatedly said is safe and effective.

Panelo said the government would follow a protocol set by the World Health Organization for all individuals to be screened before receiving the vaccine, to determine if they have ever been exposed to the infection. Any decision to start administering the vaccine again would not affect cases against individuals involved in the controversy, he added.

This year, the Philippines has reported more than 100,000 cases of dengue, a mosquito-borne tropical disease that kills about 20,000 people annually and infects hundreds of millions.

Ebola: Congolese authorities were racing to contain an Ebola epidemic on Thursday, after a gold miner with a large family contaminated several people in the east’s main city of Goma before dying of the hemorrhagic fever, officials said.

The government’s Ebola response coordinator Jean-Jacques Muyembe said an estimated half of cases of Ebola – which has killed at least 1,800 since the outbreak started a year ago – were going unidentified. “If we continue on that basis, this epidemic could last two or three years,” he told a news conference in Goma.

This is the second worst Ebola outbreak on record, after a 201316 West African epidemic infected 28,000 people and killed 11,300, mostly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

On Friday the government said the wife of the miner had tested positive for the disease – the fourth case confirmed in Goma, more than 350 km (220 miles) south of where the outbreak was first detected, raising fears of an acceleration in infections close to the border with Rwanda.

“The gold miner ... will have contaminated several people, but for the moment it is only his wife and one of his ten children who are sick,” Muyembe said.

The man himself had died of the virus earlier this week and only sought treatment more than a week after starting to show symptoms.

“The individual concerned spent time with his family ... (being) very symptomatic within the community. So we did expect further cases and we are seeing further cases,” Margaret Harris, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organisation (WHO), which declared Ebola an international health emergency last month, told journalists in Geneva.

A sister of that same miner who had travelled to Congo’s South Kivu province was swiftly identified and brought back to Goma, Muyembe said.

Health workers are technologically better equipped than ever to fight Ebola, which causes vomiting, diarrhoea and bleeding, and kills more than half its victims.

New tools including a trial vaccine, experimental treatments and futuristic cube-shaped mobile treatment units have helped curb the spread of the virus.

But public mistrust and rampant insecurity in parts of east Congo have hampered the response.

The government said one of the couple’s daughters has also tested positive for Ebola. Two other daughters were negative in preliminary checks.

A spokesman for Congo’s Ebola response team, Giscard Kusema, said in Goma that of the 300 primary and secondary contacts of the miner so far identified, 240 had been vaccinated. Two of the Ebola patients who were caught early are doing well.

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LONDON: Scientists have found multidrug-resistant “superbug” bacteria lurking on cash machines, escalators and handrails in London’s underground rail system, shopping centers and hospitals and say they pose a potential risk to public health.

Research published in the journal Scientific Reports on Thursday found “disturbing” and “worrisome” levels of antibiotic resistance, said Hermine Mkrtchyan, a specialist in biomedical sciences at the University of East London, who co-led the work.

“General public areas, which are part of our everyday life, can be reservoirs for multidrug resistant bacteria,” she said. The levels found were “further evidence that infection control measures, both in the hospitals and in public places, fail to limit the spread of resistant bacteria,” Mkrtchyan said.

The research team collected a total of 600 samples of a bacteria known as staphylococci from public places and public areas of hospitals in East and West London. Of the 600, 281 were found to be multidrug resistant.

Among the areas sampled were surfaces such washroom door handles, taps, toilet seats, ATM machines, soap dispensers, escalator rails and pedestrian crossing buttons.