Angeles City mayor assails drug firm for dengue vaccine crisis

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By Reynaldo G. Navales

ANGELES City Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan has assailed pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur over the controversial dengue vaccine crisis.

Pamintuan, president of the League of Cities of the Philippines (LCP) and chairman of the Regional Development Council (RDC)-Central Luzon, said more than 6,000 nine-year-old kids were administered with Dengvaxia, a dengue vaccine manufactured by Sanofi.

The city mayor recently met with a US-based practicing lawyer to form a legal team from France, European Union, United States, and legal consultants from various renowned legal institutions including Columbia University School of Law, Sorbonne, among others.

“I want to make sure the right legal measures are taken to compensate the damages done to those who received the vaccination, their parents and to my beloved city,” Pamintuan said.

The mayor added that he will look at the crisis as a reckless assault on the human rights of the innocent children.

“My city is firing back a direct response against the pharmaceutical company that brought fear to those affected by the immunization program.”

The Philippine government has suspended its dengue immunization program after Sanofi released an advisory that Dengvaxia may contract a more severe case of dengue fever for those people injected without prior infection.

An estimated 700,000 students in Central Luzon Region, Calabarzon Region and Metro Manila were injected with the vaccine.

After learning about the report, Pamintuan immediately instructed the head of the City Health Office to monitor the status of all elementary Grade 4 students, who got the dengue vaccine shot.

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