DOH chief to visit schools to monitor Dengvaxia recipients

Starting next week, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III will visit schools having students administered with the controversial dengue vaccine Dengvaxia, as part of heightened monitoring efforts for the 837,000 school children facing possible risks of severe dengue.

Duque will visit a Marikina school next week, and will also inspect certain schools in the rest of the National Capital Region, Regions 3 and 4-A, and Cebu, he told reporters at a news forum on Friday.

Some inspections will be unannounced so Duque could check his regional staff’s compliance with the department’s risk communication strategies, such as the setting up of posters containing vital information on dengue immunization.

^{A sample of the poster that will be put up in schools whose students received the dengue vaccine Dengvaxia}

“We will start to do our regular visits and unannounced visits of the schools where we make sure that the DOH people on the ground are able to follow what the DOH central office has put them to task,” Duque said.

Also next week, children will be given letters for their parents, containing updates on the vaccine, a reminder to watch out for dengue symptoms, and information on medical help they could seek should such symptoms arise, such as “fast lanes” in hospitals, said Health Undersecretary Rolando Enrique Domingo.

Duque has already asked Dengvaxia’s manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur to come up with a “test kit” that will determine if a patient’s blood has dengue virus, said Domingo.

“The Secretary has demanded that Sanofi have this test available at the soonest possible time so we would know exactly who among the children are at risk,” he said.

Duque has also demanded that Sanofi take back its remaining vaccine stocks and refund the corresponding amount so the government could use it for the potential care for immunized children, if needed.

The health chief also reiterated that the DOH welcomes and cooperates with the investigations into the vaccine currently being carried out by the Senate and the House of Representatives and the cases filed by groups such as the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption and Gabriela.

But the department will be focusing its efforts on post-vaccination monitoring for the 837,000 school children who received the vaccine, and that it will not file cases against Sanofi.

“We don’t want to be filing the cases ourselves because our plates are full, we have to watch out for 837,000 students who have been vaccinated, and to us that is paramount—the health of those children and to ensure that the risk is mitigated, if not not eliminated, and that is why we have been actively rolling out several risk communication strategies,” said Domingo.

Cases of 14 children

The DOH has also submitted for review to an experts panel at the University of the Philippines - Philippine General Hospital the case records of 14 children who received at least one dose of Dengvaxia and died from different causes.

Sanofi is under fire after it revealed in late November Dengvaxia, the world’s first anti-dengue vaccine, may worsen the disease for people who have not been infected with the mosquito-borne virus prior to immunization.

High-ranking government officials, including former health secretaries and former President Benigno Aquino III, have been enmeshed in Congressional inquiries on the government’s immunization program. —LBG, GMA News