Nearly 50,000 Las Piñas kids got Dengvaxia shots

Las Piñas Mayor Imelda Aguilar has ordered local health officials and school administrators to strictly monitor close to 50,000 children in the city who were given the antidengue vaccine DengVaxia, in the wake of the controversy over the government’s mass immunization program.

Aguilar said the monitoring would help the city come up with its own database which can later serve as basis for coordination with the Department of Health (DOH).

City health personnel and barangay health workers have been deployed to conduct house-to-house data gathering.

The mayor said a total of 48,996 children in the city had been vaccinated with Dengvaxia since the program was launched in April 2016.

Of this number, 7,215 children were vaccinated in schools while 41,781 had their shots administered at barangay health centers.

On Nov. 30, the vaccine’s manufacturer, the pharmaceutical giant Sanofi Pasteur, disclosed findings that DengVaxia could have severe effects on those who were vaccinated but had no previous dengue virus infection.

The announcement prompted the DOH to suspend the implementation of the P3.5-billion immunization program and order the monitoring of the inoculated children.