Phl takes lead in dengue summit

MANILA, Philippines - As the first country to implement a mass immunization program against dengue, the Philippines is taking center stage at the 2nd Asia Dengue Summit in Manila that ends today. 

According to Lulu Bravo, executive director of the Philippine Foundation for Vaccination, most of the experts attending the summit are looking at how the Department of Health (DOH) is carrying out the mass immunization campaign using Dengvaxia, the world’s first vaccine against dengue.

“Everybody’s eyes are on the Philippines because of the fact that we are the first country to do massive or major (vaccination) because in other countries, it’s still in the private sector,” Bravo, who is also a professor of Pediatric Infectious and Tropical Diseases at the University of the Philippines-Manila’s College of Medicine, said yesterday at the start of the summit.

Bravo noted many countries want to learn from the Philippines as the world is grappling with rising cases of dengue primarily due to migration. She maintained that since “mosquitoes can travel across regions inside bags,” some nations not usually seeing dengue are now reporting cases.

She refuted the accusation of some critics of the vaccination program that Filipino children are being used as “guinea pigs” to test the vaccines. 

“There will always be people who will be against it, but what we have are scientific evidence (that the vaccine is safe). It’s not easy to understand all of these issues but one thing is sure… we have evidence to prove that it is safe. Whether the vaccine has shown efficacy, there is no perfect efficacy yet. There is no vaccine that can give you 100-percent efficacy,” she added.

Role model

Malaysian infectious disease expert Zulkifli Ismail, secretary general of the Asia Pacific Pediatric Association, has confirmed they are monitoring the developments of the program in the Philippines.

Ismail said while Malaysia has “good” mosquito control system in the community, they still documented some 100,000 dengue cases each year from 2014 to 2016.

“I’m actually here now and there are other Malaysians (attending) the summit and we really want to know what the Philippines is doing, what’s happening with the vaccines,” he added.

The vaccine is not yet licensed for use in Malaysia but Ismail maintained that they want to learn from the experience of other countries.

On the other hand, Usa Thisyakorn, a world-renowned expert on pediatric infection diseases and a professor at the Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand lauded the Philippines for taking the lead in the mass dengue vaccination.

Thisyakorn said 14 countries, excluding Thailand, have already issued licenses to Dengvaxia but they use it only in private facilities.

“We are not as lucky as the Philippines. We try to convince our government to do it because there will be an impact if we do it in a mass (scale), not just in the private (sector). I don’t think it’s equity (when) just the rich can have it,” she added.

The expert said she witnessed how the Philippines was determined to address dengue back in 2010 when she was invited to speak during a meeting of pediatric infectious disease experts in the country.

“That time we did not even know that there will be a vaccine ... You have very, very good history about good intention since 2010. There are efforts in other countries but they may need some time, like in Thailand,” Thisyakorn added.