FORMER Health secretary Janette Garin has filed a criminal complaint against her successor, Paulyn Jean Ubial, accusing the latter of involvement in the deaths of school children inoculated with the controversial Dengvaxia vaccine.
Garin is facing preliminary investigation before the Department of Justice on charges arising from the deaths of at least 17 children who had been inoculated by the Dengvaxia vaccine.
The former health secretary, who already denied charges of reckless imprudence resulting in homicide under the Revised Penal Code and violations of Anti-Torture Act and Consumer Act, asked the DoJ to prosecute Ubial for alleged violation of Article 365 of the Revised Penal Code.
Garin alleged that Ubial should be the one prosecuted by the DoJ because she was the one who decided to shift the dengue immunization program from being school-based to community-based contributed to alleged reported deaths among immunized children.
According to her, such shift to community-based immunization weakened the screening and monitoring mechanisms that were set supposedly set in place during her tenure.
“Community-based immunization is prone to abuse by local politicians who use it as a political tool to facilitate access to free vaccines for their constituents who are unqualified,” Garin said, in the complaint.
Garin stressed the expansion of the immunization program during Ubial’s term ran counter to the recommendation of the World Health Organization that it should only be school-based for better monitoring, better compliance, and better screening.
She said Ubial continued with the community-based implementation of the vaccination program for more than a year, issued Philippine National Drug Formulary exemptions, expanded the program to Region 7 and to cover members of the Philippine National Police, and issued orders to implement it in three more regions.
Garin lamented it was during Ubial’s term that the second and third doses were administered to the over 400,000 students.
“It is unfortunate that several complaints were filed against me and other DOH officials when in truth only Secretary Ubial’s negligence contributed to the alleged reported deaths because of her hasty approval, launch, and implementation of her Community-Based Dengue Immunization Program,” she said.
Aside from expanding the program, Garin alleged hat Ubial was also liable for relaxing the protocol on securing prior consent by authorizing immunization on an “implied consent” basis.
“Secretary Ubial considered as implied consent the mere act of a parent bringing his or her child in the community center for immunization, even without a written consent from the parents,” Garin’s complaint said.
The complainant also accused Ubial of not complying with baseline and serial serotyping because of the absence of a commercially available testing kit.
Garin served as health chief from December 2014 to June 2016, followed by Ubial, who was in the post from July 2016 to October 2017.