Duque calls on PAO to unite vs. Sanofi Pasteur

MANILA — Health Secretary Francisco Duque III has appealed to the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) to stop treating the Department of Health (DOH) as the “enemy”, enjoining it to unite with the agency in building a strong case against the pharmaceutical firm, Sanofi Pasteur, for the Dengvaxia dengue vaccine controversy.

“Sanofi is the ultimate entity here that has to be assailed for possible non-disclosure of material information or facts that could have changed the outcome of the decision makers at that time… we need to remember that we have to be one here in building a solid case against Sanofi,” said Duque in an interview Tuesday.

Duque said nothing good would come out if PAO remains adversarial to DOH on the basis that department was the one which implemented the school-based dengue immunization program by the previous administration.

“I was not among the decision-makers when that program was implemented,” he said.

Instead of finger pointing and blame-throwing, Duque said PAO should instead unite with them under one-government approach in creating a solid case against Sanofi.

Dr. Erwin Erfe, PAO forensic expert, earlier called for Duque to resign from DOH, accusing the health chief of not being transparent on the Dengvaxia issue.

For his part, Duque argued that it was PAO who was not fully cooperating and continuously expressing refusal by not sharing its records on results of autopsies.

PAO claimed that the parents of the vaccinees refuse to be interviewed by DOH doctors.