DAVAO CITY — The Department of Health (DOH) regional office here continues to monitor the 132 persons in Davao Region who received Dengvaxia vaccine from private medical practitioners.
DOH Assistant Secretary Abdullah Dumama Jr. said these people being monitored are children and adults who opted to be vaccinated in the private clinics. These are people who were reported to his office by the public practitioners, Dumama said.
“In fact, there are individuals who are more than 45 years old already,” he said. He said some of them had dengue before they were given Dengvaxia shots.
“We cannot say that these people did not experience dengue because I noticed someone who took the vaccine but still infected with Dengue,” he said.
Dumama said some of them also did not complete the three-phase injection of the vaccine.
“These 132 were given Dengvaxia at different times, some were given only once, twice but I did not notice someone completed it,” he said.
According to Dumama, these people are closely monitored by their private physicians to check on their condition. The DOH , through its Dengvaxia Help Desk, continues to cater these people in case problems will occur.
“If you know someone who is vaccinated but never experienced Dengue, you can report that to our help desk for them to be included in our list,” he said.
The private doctors have been asked to immediately report problems for immediate intervention. So far, Dumama said DoH 11 did not receive complaints being lodged to their office.
At the national level, the government through the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH) is looking into 14 cases of death linked to Dengvaxia dengue vaccine.
A UP-PGH panel was formed to validate independently allegations of death due to Dengvaxia, which had been administered to more than 830,000 public school children under the government’s Immunization Program.
Davao Region was not among the pilot areas for the program. (Armando Fenequito Jr/PNA)
