WHILE others cried, grimaced in pain or hid their faces in their hands to avoid seeing the needle, a student of Parang Elementary School in Marikina City is a picture of calmness as he is injected with the dengue vaccine. NIÑO JESUS ORBETA/INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
Sen. Richard Gordon is planning to seek an investigation in what he said was the “undue haste” to provide dengue vaccines to almost half a million children in April this year, still during the administration of then president Benigno Aquino III.
Gordon said he and Sen. Nancy Binay would file a resolution to investigate the immediate provision of the dengue vaccine, which he had raised during the proposed 2017 budget hearing of the Department of Health.
“There has been an awful lot of questions about this sudden, undue haste in providing the dengue vaccine,” he told reporters after the DOH budget hearing. He added he just got information that a child needed a blood test to determine whether he needed the vaccine as this might either “imperil” the child or “render the vaccine inutile.
The vaccine is the first ever vaccine approved for use to prevent dengue, a mosquito-borne disease. The Philippines has many cases of dengue through the years.
During the hearing, Gordon asked Health Secretary Paulyn Jean Rosell-Ubial whether the vaccination happened hastily as he expressed concern that children here were being used as “guinea pigs” since the country was the first in Asia to have the vaccination.
It turned out the government purchased the dengue vaccine in March and it was delivered in the same month. The vaccine was registered by the Food and Drug Authority on Dec. 22, 2015.
The DOH gave the first of three doses of the vaccine on April 4 and completed the process in July this year. The program benefited 489,003 children in three regions — Metro Manila, Southern Luzon and Central Luzon, Health Assistant Secretary Eric Tayag said.
Ubial assured Gordon that the newly registered vaccine was approved for use and was safe.
Gordon pointed out that the budget for the purchase of the vaccine was given in the “last two minutes” of the Aquino administration.
Ubial admitted she did not know where the funds came from but she said records showed it was given to the DOH by the Department of Budget and Management.
Asked whether there was some opposition to the dengue vaccine, Ubial — who only started the job as health secretary when the Duterte administration came in in July, said she knew some groups of epidemiologists and experts had opposed it.
“I’m trying to find out whether this is really demand-driven or is it supply-driven? Many of the contracts where we go astray is supply-driven. The contractors are pressuring it,” he said, noting that the country was the only one in Asia implementing the vaccination.
He said Mexico has become the other country now using the dengue vaccine.
“Why should we be the guinea pig? We should make sure of its safety,” the senator said. SFM