On Thursday, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III revealed
that forensics findings of the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) showed that
dengue shock syndrome led to deaths of most of the children.
The Department of Health confirmed that the deaths of 14
children vaccinated with Dengvaxia vaccine were mostly due to Dengue sickness.
“PAO exhumed the bodies of the children and, so far, the
indication is that their deaths were consistent with dengue shock syndrome,”
Duque said.
He added that experts from the Philippine General Hospital
(PGH) are also on process of checking the clinical records of the children.
Findings of PAO and PGH clinical expert would be compared as
DOH could not conclude yet that deaths were related to the anti-Dengue vaccine.
“The death is consistent to dengue shock syndrome, but the
charts of some of the children showed co-morbidities which means there are
other illnesses. So we are trying to clear out if the other disease did not
cause or hasten their deaths,” he said.
Duque related the issue to that World Health Organization (Who)
guidelines classified shock syndrome under grade four of symptoms.
DOH commits to provide assistance to children who got sick
after being injected by the Dengvaxia.
As initiative, DOH has met with Parang Elementary Schools
students to address the issue on the said vaccine.
The school principal Marciana de Guzman said that there were
children from their school who got infected with Dengue even after getting the
shots.
DOH also installed insecticide nets inside public schools as
part of the government’s campaign to prevent spread of Dengue.
“Our surveillance is continuous. We will monitor children
injected with Dengvaxia during the previous administration in 2016 when it
started,” Duque pointed out that DOH continuously monitors health status if the
children who received the shots in 2016.
0 Comments