MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) yesterday lauded the House appropriations committee’s approval of the special fund for the 837,000 children vaccinated with the controversial anti-dengue vaccine Dengvaxia.
The appropriations committee, chaired by Davao City Rep. Karlo Nograles, has approved the proposed additional dengue funding of P1.2 billion, of which P946 million will be set aside to treat Dengvaxia recipients who will get sick, whether such sickness is related to the vaccine or not.
Part of the additional funds will be also used to hire 1,250 nurses who will seek out all of the 900,000 Dengvaxia recipients and their families.
“We are very pleased with the initial approval of our proposed budget by the House panel, which will certainly benefit all Dengvaxia-affected recipients including their families,” Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said.
The special fund represents the budget that the DOH has taken back from Dengvaxia manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur for the unused vaccines.
About 81 percent of the fund will be used for the medical assistance program for children who received Dengvaxia, 13 percent for public health management and six percent for human resource for health development.
It will be utilized until fully spent rather than putting a cap until Dec. 31, 2018 only, as originally stated in the House Bill.
Under the program, 1,250 nurses will be hired for three months to focus on “profiling, monitoring and disseminating information, and coordinating all actions of the vaccinees including their parents, to all existing health facilities and at the same time, manning hotlines for public queries.”
A total of 382 nurses will be hired as health education and promotion officers and they will be dispatched in the affected areas in Central Luzon, National Capital Region, Calabarzon and Central Visayas, particularly in Cebu province.
The nurses will be deployed continuously until 2019 and their salaries will be charged to the regular funds of the DOH.
DOH Undersecretary Rolando Domingo told the House appropriations committee that the DOH is expecting dengue cases to increase this year and next year due to waning protection the vaccine provides.
He said the DOH and government hospitals are preparing for this possibility.
As of yesterday, 87 out of the 900,000 schoolchildren who were inoculated with Dengvaxia have died, the DOH said.
During the committee hearing, Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte noted that the DOH also has an “awareness and accessibility” issue when it comes to families of schoolchildren who were administered with Dengvaxia.
He said the children’s parents have not been informed about the DOH’s Dengvaxia fast lanes in pre-specified government hospitals as well as the names and locations of these hospitals.
“I am a congressman but I don’t know that there are fast lanes and pre-specified hospitals. What more the ordinary people who have been affected,” Villafuerte added.
During the hearing, Domingo said the DOH has installed hotlines 711-1001/02 aside from designating hospitals and express lanes for Dengvaxia cases.
But when Villafuerte tried to call the numbers several times, he received no answer. All he heard was a busy tone.