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The Public Prosecutor’s Office (PAO) will present 102 new cases to the Department of Justice next month against the former Chief of Health and now Representative Janette Garin, the Secretary of Health Francisco Duque 3 and other government officials for the death of 101 schoolchildren and for risking the life of a dengue patient who was inoculated with the Dengvaxia vaccine.
Aside from Garin and Duque, former and acting officials from the Department of Health (DoH), the Food and Drug Administration, the Tropical Medicine Research Institute, the Children’s Medical Center of the Philippines, and Dengvaxia maker Sanofi Pasteur Inc. They will also face multiple charges of reckless recklessness resulting in murder and attempted murder.
At the press conference on Friday, the head of the PAO, Persida Rueda-Acosta, said that the series of charges would include the violation of the Republic Law 9745 or the “Law against torture of 2009”.
The Law Against Torture “is not bail and we hope they will be imprisoned for the torture and death of hapless school-age children after they were injected with the Dengvaxia vaccine under their tenure at the health department,” he added.
He said the PAO was helping the families of the victims, including the 158 children who died after receiving the vaccine.
The first batch of 56 cases would be handled by a family court or a regional court of first instance in Quezón city, Acosta said.
He thanked Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta, Supreme Court Administrator José Midas Marques, and other judges for accepting the agency’s request to designate the courts that will exclusively handle all Dengvaxia-related cases.
“Now that the higher court has appointed a dedicated family court to hear all of Dengvaxia’s cases, we are confident that there will be no more delaying tactics, especially from the defendants, occurring in their attempt to further delay the process,” Acosta said.
He noted that the presentation of new cases had been delayed due to the blockade caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Acosta said that the PAO had been strictly observing health protocols when performing autopsies on children suspected of having died from Dengvaxia.
In November 2017, Sanofi released an official statement on its website saying that the drug could be harmful when administered to people who have not previously been infected with dengue.
“Dengvaxia provides persistent protective benefits against dengue in those with a previous infection. However, for those who have not previously been infected with the dengue virus… more cases of serious illness could occur after vaccination in a subsequent dengue infection, ”the statement read.
Sanofi issued the statement two years after the government bought Dengvaxia worth P3.5 billion for 1 million public school children in areas that reportedly have the highest incidence of dengue.
In April 2016, the DoH, at the time led by Garin, began mass vaccinating more than 830,000 schoolchildren and even police officers.
Duque had been acquitted by the Justice Department of responsibility in the previous cases, but the PAO said the vaccination continued until 2018 when he was already Secretary of Health.
In the same briefing, the victims’ parents challenged Garin to confront them anywhere.
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