by Alliah Gullem
December 30, 2017
Manila, Philippines — Due to the latest update of the World Health Organization (WHO), the Department of Health (DOH) will be calling a panel of dengue experts within this week for the assessment of Dengvaxia, the first anti-dengue vaccine developed by Sanofi. Even the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH) was also tasked by the DOH to run an independent research on the suspected deaths under the said vaccine.
DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III said they are going to review data from Sanofi Pasteur’s five-year observation period in clinical trials, Food and Drug
photo credits to INQUIRER/LYN RILLON
DOH to call experts for Dengvaxia’s better surveillance
Administration’s post-marketing surveillance and the DOH Epidemiology Bureau's surveillance of adverse events after immunization.
According to Duque, the five-year follow up data provide an evidence of reduced risk of severe dengue and hospitalization among vaccinated trial participants and that it also confirm an earlier hypothesis that those who have taken the shot with no history of dengue infection before could be in a much higher risk of developing severe illnesses.
Earlier this month, with over 740, 000 elementary school students in the Philippines having already immunized with Dengvaxia, school-based dengue vaccination was stopped by the government with Sanofi’s announcement about the risks that Dengvaxia might impose to those who had not been infected by dengue before.
It was December 2015 when the Philippines became the first country in Asia to appeal on the commercial sale of Dengvaxia and Duque deemed the vaccination “essential”, given that Philippines has an average of 200,000 of its people infected by dengue.
Though Philippine health advocates had already raised alarm on Dengvaxia after school-based immunization program was announced, claiming that Dengvaxia was still a new drug with unprecedented possible effects, Philippine government still allocated $70 million for the program and defended it by stressing that the vaccine was approved by WHO.