This caption of this news article in The Jakarta Post immediately grabbed my attention when I read it: Philippines suspends world-first public dengue vaccination program. Here is the article in its entirety:
The Philippines said Friday it had suspended a landmark public vaccination program for the potentially deadly dengue virus after its manufacturer warned it could worsen the disease in some cases. French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi announced Wednesday that its world-first dengue vaccine could lead to more severe symptoms for people who had not previously been infected. The Philippines has vaccinated more than 733,000 children with Dengvaxia since 2016 when it became the first country to start using it on a mass scale.
But it said Friday the programme had been suspended. "In the light of this new analysis, the DOH (Department of Health) will place the dengue vaccination programme on hold while review and consultation is ongoing with experts, key stakeholders, and the WHO (World Health Organization)," Health Secretary Francisco Duque said. Sanofi had initially said its Dengvaxia vaccine was "critical" in the fight against dengue, the world's most common mosquito-borne virus. It said Wednesday that a new study has confirmed Dengvaxia's benefits for "those who had prior infection". "For those not previously infected by dengue virus, however, the analysis found that in the longer term, more cases of severe disease could occur following vaccination upon a subsequent dengue infection," Sanofi said. Duque stressed that the government had not yet received reports of any problems with Dengvaxia. "Currently, there is no reported case of severe dengue infection among those who received the vaccine," he told reporters.The content contains several perplexing elements. Purportedly "there is no reported case of severe dengue infection among those who received the vaccine" and yet the new study shows that "more cases of severe disease could occur following vaccination". Clearly there is a contradiction here. Additionally, why are children who have been vaccinated contracting dengue in the first place? Isn't the point of vaccination to prevent the child succumbing to the disease? Furthermore, "the French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi announced Wednesday that its world-first dengue vaccine could lead to more severe symptoms for people who had not previously been infected". A pharmaceutical company is admitting that its vaccine is dangerous after inoculating 733,000 children. This is strange indeed and clearly there must be a lot more to this story. Time to delve a little deeper.
Here is a YouTube video uploaded 30th November 2017 discussing the news:
Apparently, "eleven countries, including the Philippines, have approved the commercial release of Dengvaxia: Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand" according to Rappler. It is only in the Philippines however, that it was rolled out on such a massive scale. In the Rappler story, it's said that:
The vaccine was approved for sale in the Philippines a few weeks after then President Benigno Aquino III received executives from the company in a courtesy call in Paris, France, in December 2015.Clearly the executives of the company managed to persuade Aquino to approve the vaccine. I wonder what incentives were provided? But back to the present and the evidence must have been quite damning for a drug company to admit openly that a product it developed is a failure. Doubtless more details will come to light as "the office of the Philippine president on Sunday vowed to hold accountable those responsible for a suspended dengue immunisation program, which it said placed thousands of lives at risk" (source).
