Ejercito demands Senate probe into anti-dengue vaccine scare

Sen. JV Ejercito / Photo from Sen. JV Ejercito’s Facebook

Senator JV Ejercito on Friday said he will call for a Senate investigation to look into the “disturbing” discovery about the effects of the anti-dengue vaccine Dengvaxia being produced by the pharmaceutical company Sanofi for children nationwide.

“As chair of the Senate Committee on Health, I intend to call for an investigation on the disturbing findings related to the dengue vaccine, Dengvaxia,” Ejercito said in a Twitter post.

Ejercito said his committee, in conjunction with the Blue Ribbon Committee, will launch a probe to find out the government’s response on the medical issue and investigate whether there was any irregularity in the procurement of the vaccine.

The senator said the dengue vaccine probe may be scheduled in January 2018.

“We’ll let the experts and doctors and the DOH deal with the issue first then will wait for their findings and recommendations,” he added.

Sanofi recently announced its latest discovery that patients who were not previously infected by dengue but were given Dengvaxia have chances of suffering from severe diseases in the longer term.

READ: Pharma firm issues caution on use of anti-dengue vaccine

“Based on up to six years of clinical data, the new analysis evaluated long-term safety and efficacy of Dengvaxia in people who had been infected with dengue prior to vaccination and those who had not. The analysis confirmed that Dengvaxia provides persistent protective benefit against dengue fever in those who had prior infection,” Sanofi said.

The pharmaceutical company said Dengvaxia may have indications to “those not previously infected by dengue virus, however, the analysis found that in the longer term, more cases of severe disease could occur following vaccination upon a subsequent dengue infection.” /jpv