DOH official: 3 dengue deaths have consistent association with Dengvaxia

The Department of Health (DOH) on Monday confirmed that of the 14 Dengvaxia recipients who died and got illnesses, three had acquired dengue and eventually died within 30 days after vaccination.

At the resumption of the House hearing, Health Undersecretary Rolando Enrique Domingo updated lawmakers on the deaths of 29 children who received Dengvaxia through the government's dengue vaccination program launched in April 2016.

Domingo said that in 14 of these 29 cases, the causes of death are varied.

"Iba-iba ang cause of death," he said. "For the first 14 cases... we asked UP-PGH (University of the Philippines Philippine General Hospital) to look into these cases."

"They presented their finding last week and three cases of these 14 were found to have a consistent association that is vaccine product-related. Meaning, these were injected with Dengvaxia and subsequently had dengue and died [of] dengue during the 30 days after injection," he added.

Domingo said one of the three fatalities that are vaccine product-related completed the required three doses and the remaining two were administered with Dengvaxia only once.

Meanwhile, six of the 14 cases died of other causes, but they also got ill and died within 30 days of receipt of the last dose of Dengvaxia vaccine, Domingo said.

"In these cases, tissue test was recommended by the group. Three cases were found to be coincidental, the patients have other diseases and two have inadequate information," he said.

"Recommendation really is to have more tissue studies so we could have report on the death," he added.

Based on Domingo's statements, House good government and public accountability committee chair Johnny Pimentel said he believes Dengvaxia is not an effective vaccine.

"The fact that these three cases, they were already immunized by Dengvaxia pero namatay pa rin. What we have in mind... na-immunize ka ng Dengvaxia, hindi ka maapektuhan. That is the purpose of this program, so hindi epektibo," Pimentel said.

Domingo told lawmakers that based on the recent findings, the DOH is recommending against the use of Dengvaxia for a mass immunization program and should not be administered to children who have not been given the vaccine.

He said the DOH is coordinating with the Public Attorney's Office (PAO) to complete their investigation.

The PAO is also conducting autopsies on children vaccinated with Dengvaxia, but supposedly died of dengue.

In an earlier press conference, PAO and the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption said they will file administrative and civil complaints against officials involved in the purchase of Dengvaxia from Sanofi. —ALG, GMA News