MANILA, Philippines — It’s almost Christmas. The cold breezy air makes everyone feel it. But not 13-year-old Jerika (not her real name) and other schoolchildren who got injected with Dengvaxia.
Instead of getting excited about Noche Buena and the presents they will receive from their godparents, the children, as well as their parents, remain gripped by fear and worry almost a month after French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi Pasteur announced that based on clinical studies, Dengvaxia poses more risks for recipients who had no prior dengue infection.
“After three days po, sumakit ang ulo ko. Nagkalagnat po ako. Tapos nawala po. Tapos bumalik. Noong nawala ang lagnat ko, lumabas ang rashes ko,” Jerika told reporters of what happened to her after she was injected with Dengvaxia last November 22.
[I suffered from headache and fever three days after I was vaccinated. Then the fever disappeared and then returned and then rashes came out.]
Alarmed by her condition, her parents brought Jerika to San Lazaro Hospital in Manila where she underwent urine and blood tests.
“Possible raw po may dengue ako [They said it’s possible that I have dengue],” she said.
On Friday, bringing with her the immunization card issued by the Department of Health (DOH), Jerika joined other children, their parents and other family members, and Gabriela party-list Rep. Emerenciana “Emmi” de Jesus in trooping to the Supreme Court to make the government accountable for its anti-dengue vaccination program, which was started by the Aquino administration and continued by the Duterte administration.
In their petition for mandamus, the complainants asked the high court to compel the DOH, in cooperation with the Department of Interior and Local Government and other concerned agencies to extend medical assistance to children who received shots of Dengvaxia by doing the following:
(1) Conduct initial and free consultations of inoculated children per barangay, in all the regions where the school-based immunization program was implemented;
(2) Provide free medical services to inoculated children per barangay, in all the regions where the school-based immunization program was implemented, and monitor any adverse effects related to the vaccine. Such free services must include, but not limited to, blood tests and medical checkups;
(3) Provide free medical treatment, such as medicines and hospitalization to inoculated children when the medical issue at hand is determined to be related to the vaccine
“These free medical services shall continue until it would have been determined and declared by competent medical and/or scientific experts that the threat/s brought about by the Dengvaxia vaccine have been minimized or eliminated,” the petitioners said in their case.
The respondents in the petition are: DOH chief Francisco Duque III; Lyndon Lee Suy, the program director of the DOH-National Center for Disease Prevention and Control; Nela Charade Puno, director general of the Food and Drug Administration; Department of Education chief Leonor Briones; and DILG officer-in-charge Catalino Cuy.