Fears over a dengue vaccine in the Philippines have led to a big drop in immunisation rates for preventable diseases, officials have warned.<\/p>\n
Health Under-Secretary Enrique Domingo said many parents were refusing to get their children vaccinated for polio, chicken pox and tetanus.<\/p>\n
The fears centre on Dengvaxia, a drug developed by French company Sanofi.<\/p>\n
Sanofi and local experts say there is no evidence linking the deaths of 14 children to the drug.<\/p>\n
However, the company had warned last year that the vaccine could make the disease worse in some people not infected before.<\/p>\n
Dengue fever affects more than 400 million people each year around the world. Dengvaxia is the world’s first vaccine against dengue.<\/p>\n
The mosquito-borne disease is a leading cause of serious illness and death among children in some Asian and Latin American countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).<\/p>\n
What did Mr Domingo say about immunisation rates?
\n“Our programmes are suffering… (people) are scared of all vaccines now”, he warned.<\/p>\n
Mr Domingo added that vaccination rates for some preventable diseases had dropped as much as 60% in recent years – significantly lower that the nationwide target of 85%.<\/p>\n
Dengue is a potentially deadly mosquito-borne disease
\nMr Domingo expressed concerns about potential epidemics in the Philippines – a nation of about 100 million people, many of whom are impoverished.<\/p>\n
What triggered fears about Dengvaxia?
\nMore than 800,000 children were vaccinated across the country in 2016-17. Fourteen of them have died.<\/p>\n
Dengvaxia immunisations were halted last year, as the Philippines launched an investigation into what caused the deaths.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Doctors for Public Welfare (DPW) said a clinical review conducted by Philippine General Hospital forensic pathologists had determined that the deaths were not linked to the vaccine, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.<\/p>\n
What about Sanofi’s reaction?
\nIn a statement, the French company said: “The University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital expert panel confirmed… that there is currently no evidence directly linking the Dengvaxia vaccine to any of the 14 deaths.<\/p>\n
“In Dengvaxia clinical trials conducted over more than a decade and the over one million doses of the vaccine administered, no deaths related to the vaccine have been reported to us.<\/p>\n
“Clinical evidence confirms dengue vaccination in the Philippines will provide a net reduction in dengue disease.”<\/p>\n
Last November, Sanofi announced that its vaccine could worsen the potentially deadly disease in people not previously infected.<\/p>\n
“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,” the firm said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Sanofi says Dengvaxia has been registered in 19 countries and launched in 11 of them.<\/p>\n
In its latest advice on the vaccine, the WHO said that “until a full review has been conducted, WHO recommends vaccination only in individuals with a documented past dengue infection”.<\/p>\n
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Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fears over a dengue vaccine in the Philippines have led to a big drop in immunisation rates for preventable diseases, officials have warned. Health Under-Secretary Enrique Domingo said many parents were refusing to get their children vaccinated for polio, chicken pox and tetanus. The fears centre on Dengvaxia, a drug developed by French company Sanofi. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":397991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[107],"tags":[16776,7419],"yoast_head":"\n