No politics in int’l probe of Dengvaxia mess – senators

PHOTO BY EDWIN BACASMAS

Two senators on Wednesday hailed President Rodrigo Duterte’s move to form a panel of foreign experts to probe the Aquino administration’s procurement of the dengue vaccine Dengvaxia, and said they hoped that the probe would uncover truth untainted by politics.

“I urge the President to appoint people with proven expertise, probity and objectivity who can investigate in a depoliticized environment and study if there [was] indeed a relationship between the vaccine and the deaths of children injected with Dengvaxia,” Sen. JV Ejercito said.

The Aquino administration purchased Dengvaxia for a mass immunization program in 2016.

But the vaccine became controversial after its manufacturer, Sanofi-Pasteur, said late last year that it could cause more severe symptoms in people who had not been previously exposed to the dengue disease.

Case vs officials

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said the findings of the panel could support the case being built up against officials involved in the purchase of the vaccine.

“This three-man task force will be coming from outside of the Philippines” so that the probe would “not be tainted by politics,” he added.

The Aquino administration should have been more careful about acquiring a product that had not been thoroughly tested, he said. —Leila B. Salaverria