This month of June is a busy one for weddings and for dengue summits as well. The 8th Asia Dengue Summit 2025 was held June 15-18 and the Philippine Medical Association held its Second Dengue Summit on June 25th.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend the first, but I attended the second PMA Dengue Summit as the representative of the Philippine Society of Pathologists Inc., the only association for pathologists recognized by the PMA. The keynote speaker was Secretary of Health Dr. Teodoro Herbosa who delivered a talk on various aspects of dengue control.

I was disappointed to hear that the FDA still has to decide on Qdenga application due to questions raised about the vaccine. This is in spite of Takeda submitting its brief on the response to these questions back in April 2025. I had written about Qdenga before (Deep dive into the new dengue vaccine, March 10, 2025).

The morning session featured the WHO report on dengue around the world by the WHO Philippines Team Lead, Communicable Diseases and Technical Officer, Dr. Bayo S. Fatunmbi, who flashed the map that showed the Philippines in white, meaning there was no data submitted for year 2024.

Next was the Department of Health Report which only repeated what we already know about its efforts to control dengue. My column, Dengue reality bites (Sept. 16, 2024), already discussed how ineffective the measures were, which is backed up by the very high infection rates in the country this year. Talk about the insanity of repeating actions and expecting a different result!

In the same column, I had noted the absence of Philippine dengue data on the WHO website, so I had to ask the DOH representative on why the DOH did not report the data to WHO. Her answer: It was an issue of data confidentiality!

Pardon me, but as far as I know, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, confidentiality is applicable only to individual patient data, not for public health statistics. This subterfuge will only strengthen the suspicion that the DOH is deliberately hiding something or is trying to lessen the impact of this devastating disease. But what it does is to obscure the picture and without data, there can be no effective action to mitigate the dangerous public health and dire economic effects of dengue. Dr. Fatunmbi later came up to my table to thank me for pointing out this glaring omission. It doesn’t paint a good picture of our national health authorities.

Dr. Eric Tayag, former undersecretary of health, spoke on Vector Control, but in the end emphasized that a comprehensive dengue control program must include vaccination as one of its main pillars of controlling dengue. Of course, it won’t be a complete talk by Dr. Tayag without his signature command performance when everyone in the audience followed his dance steps.

Dr. Charissa Borja-Tabora, head, research and innovative office, RITM, discussed current vaccine developments, which are encouraging in the ongoing clinical trials, but may be far from approval, considering FDA’s foot-dragging on Qdenga.

The main issue, which Dr. Albert Domingo, current DOH spokesperson, in a recent TV interview said, was a major one: the withdrawal of Takeda’s application for regulatory approval of Qdenga in Singapore and USA, claiming our local FDA only follows the more respected and reputable FDAs in the world. This is a rather shallow reason, which does not delve into the reasons why the applications were withdrawn.

Withdrawal of an application for licensing doesn’t mean it was denied. It could be procedural, and not involve safety and efficacy. Studies on Qdenga show an overall vaccine efficacy of 80.2 percent for dengue infection and 90.4 percent efficacy against severe disease for all serotypes. There was no issue of safety in both seronegative and seropositive individuals.

Let’s explore the statement that the Philippine FDA only follows the most reputable FDAs. Qdenga has approval for use in all European Union member states, Israel, Argentina, Columbia and in Asia, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam. Are we to believe that these countries’ FDAs are not reputable?

Why is the DOH tiptoeing around the issue of dengue vaccines when we’re in the grip of dengue epidemics year after year? Does it fear a repeat of the Dengvaxia controversy (The elephant in the vaccination room, Oct. 26, 2021) even if the first batch of cases were dismissed for lack of merit?

We need a vaccine for dengue urgently. At the moment, only Takeda’s Qdenga is available but has not been approved. Please act now, FDA, before more lives are lost to this plague.

Then, maybe, we won’t need to have many dengue summits if we have licked the virus.