Duque, Garin face new Dengvaxia raps

THE Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) will file next month before the Department of Justice 102 new cases against former Health chief and now Rep. Janette Garin, Health Secretary Francisco Duque 3rd and other government officials for the deaths of 101 school children and for risking the life of a dengue patient who was inoculated with the Dengvaxia vaccine.

Aside from Garin and Duque, former and sitting officials of the Department of Health (DoH), Food and Drug Administration, Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, Philippine Children’s Medical Center and Dengvaxia manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur Inc. will also face multiple counts of reckless imprudence resulting in homicide and

frustrated homicide.

In Friday’s press briefing, PAO chief Persida Rueda-Acosta said the raft of charges would include violation of Republic Act 9745 o the the “Anti-Torture Act of 2009.”

The Anti-Torture Law “is nonbailable and we hope to have them jailed for the torture and deaths of hapless school children after they were injected with the Dengvaxia vaccine under their term at the health department,” she added.

She said PAO was assisting families of the victims, including the 158 children who died after being given the vaccine.

The first batch of 56 cases would be handled by a family court or Regional Trial Court in Quezon City, Acosta noted.

She thanked Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta, Supreme Court

Administrator Jose Midas Marques and other justices for granting the agency’s petition to designate the courts that will exclusively handle all Dengvaxia-related cases.

“Now that the high tribunal has designated an exclusive family court to hear all Dengvaxia cases, we are confident that there will be no more dilatory tactics especially from the accused that occur in their bid to further delay the proceedings,” Acosta said.

She noted that the filing of new cases had been delayed by the lockdown brought about by the coronavirus pandemic.

Acosta said PAO had been strictly observing health protocols in conducting autopsies of the children suspected to have died from Dengvaxia.

In November 2017, Sanofi issued an official statement on its

website saying the drug could be harmful when administered to individuals not previously infected with dengue.

“Dengvaxia provides persistent protective benefits against dengue fever in those who had prior infection. For those not previously infected by dengue virus, however... more cases of severe disease could occur following vaccination upon a subsequent dengue infection,” the statement read.

Sanofi issued the statement two years after the government bought P3.5 billion worth of Dengvaxia for 1 million public school children in areas reported to have the highest incidence of dengue.

In April 2016, the DoH, at the time headed by Garin, started the mass vaccination of over 830,000 school children and even policemen.

Duque had been cleared by the Department of Justice of liability in the previous cases, but PAO said the vaccination continued until 2018 when he was already Health secretary.

In the same briefing, parents of the victims dared Garin to face them in any venue.