The news prompted an uproar in the Philippines, where more than 800,000 school-age children had been vaccinated in 2016. It formed a 10-member panel of experts to determine if the drug was directly connected to the deaths of 14 children after they were given the vaccine. Two of them may have died because of vaccine failure,” Health Undersecretary Enrique Domingo told a news conference. The dengue death rate in the Philippines was 60 times higher than global rate, Sio-Aguilar said. The Philippines spent 3.5 billion pesos ($68 million) on the Dengvaxia program to reduce the 200,000 dengue cases reported every year.

Source: bd News24 February 02, 2018 07:41 UTC