By Charissa Luci-Atienza Senior Deputy Minority Leader and Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin called Wednesday the attention of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III over the Food and Drug Administration’s apparent hasty grant of license to the Japanese encephalitis (JE) vaccine. Deputy Minority Leader and Iloilo 1st district Rep. Janette Garin
(JOHN JEROME GANZON / MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO) At Wednesday's House Committee on Appropriations’ deliberations on the proposed P88-billion budget of the Department of Health (DOH) for 2020,the former Health Secretary disclosed that it took only five days for the vaccine to be registered, contrary to Duque’s pronouncement that "it took four months for the JEV to be certified.” "Your Honor, I really respect the DOH, Tingin ko, you are very good friend of mine and we worked together pero hindi ko po malunok na sasagutin ako ng apat na buwan because I have here the documents. I have here all the attachments. The vaccine was licensed within a span of five days," she said. Garin moved to suspend the consideration of the DOH’s proposed budget for next year. “I would like DOH to move forward, pero di naman puede na ang sagot sa atin ay hindi totoo. After all, how can we help the department? This is documented, it is five days from the first day of submission to the issuance of the certificate of product registration Japanese encephalitis for the DOH program and now you are telling me it is four months,” she said. Duque apologized to the House panel, explaining that there are certain operational issues in the DOH he failed to monitor. " certain operational issues I don’t get closely monitored and so my apologies, you have the documents. I will identify accountable officers to make sure that the information that is fed to me is actually accurate,” he said. Duque’s sorry response prompted Garin to withdraw her motion. Garin also raised eyebrows at Duque’s pronouncement that there has been no product recall on the basis of deficient documents. “There has been no product recall on the basis of deficient document submission and that the basis for product recall is actually adverse findings on the product itself, concerning the product. That is why we have surveillance of these products precisely to monitor through pharmacovigilance the status of that product once it has been introduced in the market,” Duque said. “So ang sagot nyo po sa buong history ng Pilipinas, wala pa pong produkto na kulang ng papeles, this runs counter to what you are doing to the dengue vaccine,” Garin said, referring to the revocation of Dengvaxia’s Certificate of product registration (CPR) in December 2017 due to “continued failure” to submit post-marketing surveillance report. During the budget hearing, Duque said they launched intensified massive informative drive against the deadly mosquito-borne disease, especially in affected areas— Regions VI, IV-A and VIII. He said the DOH has released around P130.7 million since it declared a dengue epidemic nationwide on August 5. He noted that from January 1 to August 10 this year, the DOH recorded 208, 917 cases. “Mas mababa ang fatality rate compared to previous years,” Duque said. He said the rise in dengue cases is not unusual, citing the World Health Organization (WHO) report, which disclosed that other neighboring countries like Laos, Vietnam, and Singapore posted up to 300 to a 400-percent increase in dengue cases. “Ang pagtaas ng dengue ay hindi kakaiba,” he said. Citing the WHO report, the Philippines and Malaysia posted close to a 100-percent increase in dengue cases, the DOH Chief said. “Binigay natin ang lahat ng tulong kaya masasabi na 99.96 percent of dengue cases in the Philippines have recovered while, only.4 percent ay pumanaw sa severe dengue,” Duque said. During the hearing, it was also disclosed that the DOH released P79 million to purchase mosquito nets for classroom use.