Dengue Vaccine/Dengvaxia
Since COVID-19is very rampant nowadays, the World Health Organizations (WHO) and the Department of Health (DOH) together with the vaccine manufacturers are doing their best to create a vaccine that can fight and stop the said pandemic.
But as a Filipino citizen who happened to witness an instance about dengvaxia, how can I trust vaccines which are not really know if accurate or not?
Here in our place, year 2016, when Barangay Health Workers (BHW) went to the Elementary School and said that all students in grade 4 were chosen as the beneficiaries of Dengvaxia. Since dengue is known as a dangerous disease, parents of grade 4 students gladly agreed not knowing if it is advisable three scheduled shots with six months interval.
Time fly so fast. After two years, a girl who was benefited of that vaccine got influenza, a very high body temperature occurred in her. She vomits, dizziness fill in her, she was weak and had a red skin due to rashes. She isn’t taken to the hospital or any medical establishment for 2 days. She just let her mother give fever medicines. On the third day, the fever has not get lower so mother decided to bring her to the hospital. Unfortunately, there’s no boat to ride to go to the town proper where the facility is, (we live in an isle that’s why our transportation means is by water).
Mother got scared because the girl happen to lost her consciousness. Until a man came, he was the bread delivery boy that came from other barangay. I ask him a favor for us to ride in his little boat called pagukpok for us to be able to go in other barangay who has a trip to the town proper, he didn’t hesitate to say yes and I thanked him that much.
When we reached the hospital, there are so many patients who are in line, we wait until 1:00pm until our turn. When the nurse got the temperature, it’s about 42 degree celcius, she accompanied us to the Emergency room and she immediately put a dextrose in her because according to the nurse the girl is already dehydrated. Hospital staff said that she was going to be admitted for observation. And when she got her blood test, she is positive into dengue. Mother was surprised knowing that her child has a vaccine. In the hospital room where she was admitted, all patients had dengue. Some of them has dengvaxia and some has none. The girl was seven days confined in the hospital, mother terribly scared for what happened to her daughter. She vomits, she had a lose vowel movement, her right lung was filled with water, her color becomes red violet that it looks like a banana-heart and her platelet’s count went down to 18 and the doctor said if she will not recover she will undergo blood transfusion and thanks God it didn’t happen. She lost her appetite that she cannot eat anything and her stomach can’t accept even water, when her father visits her, he always bring the food and fruits the girl wanted to eat . She was monitored by the medical technologist everyday, she got 32 needle shots for getting laboratory sample for different laboratory tests. Until news in the television came out that the said vaccine was not proven yet. Some said that dengvaxia must be taken only by the person who experienced dengue, not the person who has not experience it yet. Meaning to say the vaccine is not yet ready to be injected, it was not fully considered as a good and effective vaccine, it has no proof of 100% accuracy, it’s studies are improperly oriented. How devastating this experience was.
After that instance, how can I trust vaccines which are not yet proven and tested?
I've been vaccinated twice to prevent covid