MANILA, Philippines — Former President Benigno Aquino III said Monday that he would have stopped the administration of Dengvaxia had government been informed that the vaccine from Sanofi Pasteur could not completely shield the children from dengue.
“Ang pangako ng Sanofi, ginawa nila iyong vaccine para wala ng risk … Dati, meron kang vaccine good for all four serotypes … Noong 2017, iba na yata ang sinasabi, nadagdagan na ng kung hindi ka pa naimpeksyon ay pwedeng lumala … bigla na lang sasabihin nila pag nagkaroon ka ng vaccine na ito, wala ka paring proteksyon, parang nabaligtad sa sinabi nila noong una,” he said.
(Sanofi’s promise was they made the vaccine to eradicate the risk … Before, you had a vaccine good for all four serotypes … IN 2017, they were saying something else, that if you had no prior information it might be worse … suddenly they said that even if you received the vaccine, you were still not protected, the opposite of what they said at first.)
“Sa baligtarang sagot, talagang dapat ihinto (On hindsight, it really should’ve been stopped) …” he told the hearing of the House of Representatives.
Former Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said funds were allocated only after the vaccine had been given a certificate of product registration by the Food and Drug Administration in December 2016.
At that time, he said the budget for 2017 had already been approved. Thus, Aquino had to approve the allocation of funds from government savings.
He said there was also a memorandum from the Department of Health stressing the need for the vaccine because of the high incidence of dengue.
