Aksyon appeals to EU on Dengvaxia

In a reaction to recent news on Dengvaxia’s possible accreditation in the European Union (EU), Aksyon Health Workers Party-List calls on the European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) to rescind its recommendation of the anti-dengue vaccine manufactured by French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-Pasteur – for marketing authorization.

This is in light of the Philippine situation and the fact that the dengue-endemic areas are actually not in Europe, but in its overseas territories in the Carribean, Latin America, Southern Africa, and our own neighbors in the WHO Western Pacific Region, with increasing health burdens and income inequality.

Aksyon Health Workers appeals to the high officials of CHMP and the EU to closely scrutinize the effects of Dengvaxia among 800,000 Filipino individuals, mostly children, who were administered with the vaccine before taking any step to recommend it.

With more than 80 deaths and thousands of hospitalizations associated with Dengvaxia, we believe that it should warrant enough bases for all medicines regulatory bodies around the world to raise the red flag and push for an independent investigation on the vaccine.

We plead with the CHMP and the EU not to turn a blind eye on what happened to these children who like their peers, had dreams to become productive citizens of this country and help their families out of poverty. But that dream was snatched away by a broken health system that fails to take care of those most in need, and a dubious mass immunization program which failed to complete all the clearance required for a vaccine before reaching the population.

Aksyon Health Workers Party-List together with community-based health organizations and the parents of Dengvaxia vaccinees will closely monitor this development and study the possibility of writing a letter of appeal to the EU and CHMP. – Dr. JOSEPH M. CARABEO, President and nominee, AKSYON Health Workers Party-List