Guilt is theirs
It is unfortunate that medical experts have allowed lawyers and politicians to act as harbingers of death on the issue of Dengvaxia, when all that was needed was prove that its distribution to the public by the previous administration was an ugly act of electioneering.
Government was hot on the trail of several politicos, including former President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino and several key members of his Cabinet, for using Dengvaxia as a political tool. But several personalities salivating for President Rodrigo Duterte’s attention have snatched away the intent of the probe to suit their ends.
Filipino children aged nine and up have been administered with one dose of the anti-dengue vaccine as part of a government program that cost the public P3.5 billion pesos ($69.54 million).
It is not the purchase of the drug that put Aquino and his men under scrutiny, though. It was the time and manner of the Dengvaxia’s distribution that questions have been raised about the propriety of the program.
Aquino had been in talks with Sanofi since 2014, just after the drug maker declared as successful Dengvaxia’s two parallel Phase 3 clinical studies, with the Philippines — where the dengue mosquito is common — as a participant.
Dengvaxia is the first anti-dengue vaccine since its development was started as early as 1929. The drug is on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) List of Essential Medicines. It is in the roster of the safest and most effective medicines needed in a health system.
To make it short, Dengvaxia is safe as deemed by experts. It is currently approved for use in many countries.
By February 2016, Aquino’s Health Secretary Janette Garin was launching Dengvaxia for use of young Filipinos placed under the program.
Only that it was three months away from the presidential elections. Dengvaxia had become a political weapon to prop up the candidacy of Aquino’s chosen one, Mar Roxas, who at that point needed all the boost he could muster as he was trailing Mr. Duterte and Sen. Grace Poe badly.
A month after Aquino’s purchase order to Zuellig Pharma, the distributor of Dengvaxia, a paper released by the WHO called for more studies into the vaccine as it “may be ineffective or may even increase that risk in those who are seronegative at the time of first vaccination.”
Seronegative means people who have not yet contracted the dengue disease.
“They
added emotions, coupled with all the shrieking and antics to flavor what should have been issues of graft, corruption and electioneering into the mix.
And then by July 2016, the WHO said Dengvaxia “may act as a silent natural infection that primes seronegative vaccines to experience a secondary-like infection upon their first exposure to dengue virus.” (It) “may be ineffective or may theoretically even increase the future risk of hospitalized or severe dengue illness in those who are seronegative at the time of first vaccination regardless of age.”
Quickly, Garin’s successor former Health Secretary Paulyn
Ubial, suspended the school-based immunization program, reducing to just 489,003 students who have received the first dose qualified to the take second and third doses.
These became the ammunition of anti-vaxxers and anti-Aquino personalities to hit back. Only that they added emotions, coupled with all the shrieking and antics to flavor what should have been issues of graft, corruption and electioneering into the mix.
The results have been obvious. They have created a nationwide fear and aversion to drugs, especially vaccines which government gives for free.
And lately, aside from dengue, which fills hospitals with patients to this moment, an outbreak of measles and polio have also been raised by the DoH.
Polio had been eradicated by the Philippines for two decades already. But the DoH admitted to its reemergence.
These are diseases which can be controlled. But fear of vaccination scattered no less by some officials who are non-medical experts are keeping people away from the medical centers which government had built and funded and manned and placed where the poorest should be served.
Many hands are bloodied by this amplified mess. They deserve that mosquito bite.
“Dengvaxia had become a political weapon to prop up the candidacy of Aquino’s chosen one, Mar Roxas, who at that point needed all the boost he could muster.