Stop talk on Dengvaxia, stop hysteria, says UP-PGH chief

Medical experts and concerned government agencies should have a “common message” instead of fanning the hysteria over the controversial dengue immunization program, the director of the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH) said Tuesday.

“I’d like to ask everyone in power, I think if you want to stop the hysteria, since you have the power, tell everyone to stop talking, including us,” Dr. Gerardo Legaspi, director of UP-PGH, said during the Senate Blue Ribbon committee probe on the Dengvaxia mess.

Legaspi said they should instead “regroup and gather strength” to have a “common message” to allay public fears on the Dengvaxia program.

Legaspi said the focus of the government now should be on the children who got the vaccine, rather than the possible prosecution of individuals behind the purchase.

“I think we should not mix up the urgency to prosecute with the urgency to find out the truth,” he said.

“Let us find first what’s really happening to these children. Let us make sure that the rest who are not sick don’t get very sick or those who are sick get proper treatment before we panic with trying to find evidence that may not even be present to begin with and try to use this to hasten a process to punish,” Legaspi added.

Senator Richard Gordon, chairman of the Blue Ribbon committee, said however that the Dengvaxia controversy would have been “shoved underneath” if nobody talked about the issue.

“Hysteria happened when Sanofi said ‘you could have severe dengue’ and people, rightly or wrongly, conducted autopsies. We want to fix the problem. We don’t want to fix the blame,” Gordon said.

The Department of Health (DOH) stopped the government's dengue immunization program on December 1 following Sanofi Pasteur’s announcement that the vaccine may increase the risk of hospitalization for dengue and severe dengue in those with no prior infection.

More than 830,000 children aged 9 and above from public schools in Metro Manila, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, and Cebu were vaccinated with Dengvaxia according to DOH. —NB, GMA News