Skip to main content

Senate must probe DOH purchase of dengue vaccine, says Ejercito

JV Ejercito © Benjie Castro JV Ejercito

The Senate Blue Ribbon and Health Committees must probe the Department of Health’s procurement of the dengue vaccine Dengvaxia, said Senator JV Ejercito on Friday, one day after the vaccine’s manufacturer announced it may cause “severe disease” to those who have not been infected prior to vaccination.

"That should be investigated by Blue Ribbon Committee as primary, with Committee on Health as secondary committee since it’s about corruption and accountability," Ejercito said in a tweet.

On Thursday, pharmaceutical company Sanofi said the vaccine Dengvaxia is only safe and effective in the long run for people who have been infected with dengue before they were vaccinated.

"Based on up to six years of clinical data, the new analysis evaluated long-term safety and efficacy of Dengvaxia in people who had been infected with dengue prior to vaccination and those who had not. The analysis confirmed that Dengvaxia provides persistent protective benefit against dengue fever in those who had prior infection," Sanofi said in a press statement.

"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," it added.

Ejercito was replying to Dr. Anthony Leachon, a health reform advocate and the independent director of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation, who raised that the DOH and Congress must be alerted for the government reportedly spent P3.5 billion on the said vaccine.

The procurement of the vaccine was already questioned in congressional inquiries towards the end of 2016 for the amount that was spent on it, and for its initial target demographic of a million children, when similar programs supposedly needed only 20,000 to 30,000.

In November, however, the DOH said it is “ethically bound” to complete the dengue vaccination program. —Nicole-Anne C. Lagrimas/KG, GMA News

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

You can pay at a restaurant by smiling at a camera

© Provided by Engadget As easy as it is to make purchases in the era of tap-to-pay services , it's about to get easier still. Alipay (which handles purchases for Chinese shopping giant Alibaba) has launched what it says is the first payment system that uses facial recognition to complete the sale. If you visit one of KFC's KPRO restaurants in Hangzhou, China, you can pay for your panini or salad by smiling at a camera-equipped kiosk -- you need to verify the purchase on your phone, but you don't have to punch in digits or bring your phone up to an NFC reader. The system (Smile to Pay) is purportedly resistant to spoofing with photos and other tricks. It relies on both depth-sensing cameras and a "likeness detection algorithm" to make sure it's really you. Reportedly, the technology is good enough that it can accurately identify people even when they're disguising themselves through makeup or wigs. You shouldn't have to worry about someone buying ...
Read more

Cimatu warns miners: Don’t befoul watersheds, forests, aquatic resources

© Provided by Mediamerge Corporation Newly-appointed Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Roy Cimatu poses for a photo before being sworn into office by President Rodrigo Duterte ahead of the 15th Cabinet meeting in Malacañang on Monday, May 7, 2017. Robinson Niñal/PPD Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu on Tuesday warned mining firms to observe responsible mining and avoid destructive practices or face sanctions His pronouncement came in response to President Rodrigo Duterte's second State of the Nation Address, in which the chief executive emphasized mining's impact on the environment. "I know for a fact that in a number of cases, weak and irresponsible mining practices result [in] environmental destruction—contaminating farmlands and poisoning our rivers and seas," Cimatu said in a statement. "Miners better refrain from despoiling our watersheds, forests and aquatic resources," he added. Cimatu said the Department of Environment and Natural Res...
Read more

Tesla cloud account hacked to mine cryptocurrency

© Provided by The Hill An unidentified outside hacker infiltrated Tesla's Amazon cloud account and used its systems to quietly mine for cryptocurrencies, a cybersecurity firm announced Tuesday. The hack also potentially exposed the electric car company's data. Researchers for RedLock found that Tesla's credentials on an IT administrative console were not password protected. They made the discovery while trying to track down which organizations had left their Amazon Web Services (AWS) credentials openly exposed on the internet last month. The hackers quietly hijacked the console and began running scripts to generate virtual currency like bitcoin, the latest in a series of "cryptojacking" attacks. The researchers also found the hackers used "sophisticated evasion measures" to go undetected. A spokesperson for Tesla said the company learned about the breach in a company-sanctioned bug bounty program that pays outside hackers to discover vulnerabilitie...
Read more