After the Department of Health (DOH) declared a state of epidemic on August 6 due to increasing dengue cases in the country, Rodrigo Duterte immediately proposed to revive the anomalous Dengvaxia vaccination program for Filipino children which is believed to have killed about 26 from April 2016-February 2018.

Doctors and health workers groups opposed the recent push for vaccination. They said that the regime should prioritize preventive measure against dengue. Dengvaxia will not put a stop to the dengue epidemic as it will take a couple or several years for it to take effect.

They added that the anti-dengue campaign will be effective only if local government units will prioritize their implementation of measures which have already been set. A sufficient budget allocation for health services is also vital, including wages for health workers at the barangay level and community doctors who serve in rural poor communities in the hinterlands.

During the second week of August, the Philippines recorded the highest cases of dengue in Southeasat Asia. Around 620 patients died due to the disease which could have been prevented as early as January when the outbreak started. The announcement of the DOH of its prevention plan already came too late.

Early on, health workers and doctors have opposed the mass Dengvaxia vaccination program as the said vaccine was still in trial stage. No one has been held accountable for the said anomaly. More than 870,000 children have been experimented on by Sanofi Pasteur. The pharmaceutical company is notorious for its criminal record of bribing doctors and governments, and violating ethical standards to facilitate their procurement of medicines that are being manufactured by the company.