Official to spill beans on dengue vaccine mess — Aguirre

MANILA, Philippines — A government official has surfaced to spill the beans on alleged anomalies in the P3.5-billion dengue immunization program of the previous administration, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II has revealed.

Aguirre said the official volunteered to cooperate in the fact-finding probe of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), which is looking into the possible civil and criminal liabilities of officials behind the vaccine mess.

“This government official is a very, very important witness who knows the transaction from beginning to end,” the Department of Justice chief hinted in an interview last Friday.

He did not name the official yet so as not to jeopardize or preempt the testimony, but would meet this person after the Christmas break.

Aguirre earlier ordered the NBI to investigate and build cases against those involved in the dengue vaccine immunization project after pharmaceutical firm Sanofi Pasteur, which produced Dengvaxia, advised the public that the vaccine is effective for people who have had dengue prior to immunization but creates a risk of a “severe” case of dengue for people who have not yet had dengue.

A lookout bulletin order was earlier issued against former president Benigno Aquino III, former health secretary Janette Garin and six other officials who approved the program in 2015. This would require them to secure a permit from his office before they would be allowed to travel abroad.

Aguirre issued the order after Gabriela party-list and the parents of children who were given the vaccine filed a complaint against Aquino and his former officers before the Office of the Ombudsman.

The respondents were specifically charged with violation of Republic Act 3019 or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act for approving the program that was allegedly “grossly disadvantageous to the government and detrimental to the health and welfare of its recipients, due to the lack of comprehensive study on the effectivity and risks of the vaccines.”

Also charged before the anti-graft body were former budget secretary Florencio Abad, former executive secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr., Sanofi Pasteur vice president of dengue vaccine Guillaume Leroy, Sanofi chief executive officer Oliver Brandicourt, Sanofi Pasteur medical doctor Ruby Dizon, Sanofi Pasteur representative Thomas Triomphe and Sanofi-Adventis Philippines country chair Carlito Realuyo.

Parents of two school children – Christine Mae de Guzman and Anjielica Pestilos – who supposedly died after getting the vaccine have also surfaced last week and demanded justice.

Assisted by the Public Attorney’s Office and Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption, the parents of De Guzman and Pestilos sought the accountability of officials and personalities behind the vaccine.

De Guzman received Dengvaxia vaccine on April 16, 2016 through a school vaccination project at Sisiman Elementary School in Bataan.

After six months or on Oct. 11, 2016, Christine Mae complained of headache and had high fever. After two days, she was taken to the Mariveles Health Service Cooperative Hospital where she was diagnosed with severe dengue. She died on Oct. 15 last year.

Pestilos, on the other hand, died just last Dec. 15, three months after receiving the vaccine also through an anti-vaccination program in school last September.

While her death certificate indicated that she died of systemic lupus erythematosus or an auto immuni disease, PAO forensic expert Erwin Erfe believes that it was also a case of death by severe dengue.

PAO chief Persida Rueda-Acosta and VACC lawyer Ferdinand Topacio said they would build a class suit as well as criminal and administrative cases against the former officers.

They also called on the NBI to expedite its actions to prevent the reported efforts to cover up the case, particularly the alleged conspiracy of senior Department of Health (DOH) officials to sabotage the investigation.

“We’ve been informed by an insider that they are already shredding the documents in the DOH. So I urge Secretary Aguirre to order the NBI to now raid DOH and seize the documents in the DOH,” Topacio alleged.

A senior DOH official claimed over the weekend that the controversial dengue vaccine was “aboveboard” and “all within legal bounds.”

Herminigildo Valle, health undersecretary for field implementation and management, said that while the purchase order for Dengvaxia vaccine was faster than other government transactions, the DOH and French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi Pasteur met all the legal requirements in government procurement.

He claimed that the DOH’s investigating panel saw no proof linking Dengvaxia vaccination to the reported cases of fatalities and instead cited “overwhelming data on the efficacy” of the Dengvaxia vaccine.

In Caraga region, DOH regional director Jose Llacuna said his office is monitoring more than 290 elementary pupils who received the Dengvaxia vaccine.

A majority of those injected with the controversial vaccine, mostly aged nine years, are in the public elementary schools of Butuan City, the region’s capital. – With Ben Serrano