A massive PR campaign

Sixty-eight percent. This is the number of Filipinos who won’t allow themselves to be inoculated with a vaccine. It’s a number that precludes attaining the herd immunity we must have.

That high number was created by the hysterical, unproven reaction to Sanofi telling the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that it had subsequently discovered it was best not to inoculate people who previously did not have dengue, as it followed recipients after the phase 3 trials. It wouldn’t kill them, it would just increase the chance to have a worse reaction. It should be noted that the vaccination campaign was in a highly endemic area, which means most of the kids would already have had dengue. This, however, was blown up into a wild claim that Dengvaxia was killing kids. It wasn’t. In the three years since, no proof has been found of any seronegative (those who did not have dengue before) person dying due to Dengvaxia. None.

But it led to the FDA suspending the license for Sanofi to sell the drug here. Dengvaxia is used in 20 countries where dengue is prevalent, with no ill effects and certainly no vaccine-induced deaths. It’s proven safe.

Unfortunately, what the scare did was to frighten mothers from having their kids vaccinated for any potential illness, not only dengue; and people in general, too. Acceptance of vaccination fell from 93 percent to 32 percent. What is particularly upsetting is measles. Measles is also a deadly disease, and hundreds of children have died because mothers wouldn’t allow their children to be vaccinated. In 2018, the Department of Health (DOH) reported some 18,400 cases from only 2,400 in 2017. From Jan. 1 to Feb. 23, 2019, the DOH reported 203 deaths. The vast majority of those deaths would not have occurred if kids (it was mostly kids) had been vaccinated.

Well, we’re in a much more dangerous situation now. It’s reported that over 12,000 Filipinos have died from COVID-19, probably much more. Those numbers will continue to rise until we achieve herd immunity by inoculating at least 70 percent of the population. We can’t achieve this unless the thinking of the people is changed.

What is needed is a massive PR campaign to emphasize the safety of vaccines. That should be anchored on the fact that Dengvaxia is safe, like all the other vaccines the FDA has approved, including the COVID-19 vaccines. That message has to get to the general population before COVID-19 vaccines are widely distributed so they will be accepted when offered. If that fact is widely disseminated, it should help bring us back to the 70-80 percent acceptance rate we had in the past, a rate that would give us herd immunity from COVID-19.

That means spending massively on PR, such as getting famous, well-liked people to endorse inoculation, or having slick, appealing, imaginative videos promoting a vaccine. The church should also be brought into the picture—preach from the pulpit the wisdom and safety of vaccination.

The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases might well want to consider hosting a series of shows where doctors and epidemiologists join with the drug manufacturers to discuss what vaccines do, and how they are safe as proven by over a century of use since a vaccine against rabies was first introduced in 1885 by Louis Pasteur. I’d have well-known popular figures the public respects join these shows to endorse vaccination. I’d not only focus on the COVID-19 vaccines, but all vaccines the FDA has approved as safe and efficacious.

The confidence in the FDA is reinforced by its initial action on Dengvaxia. Because it couldn’t be readily determined whether or not a child has had dengue before, the FDA showed its responsibility and suspended the license. Now there is a chance that Dengvaxia could be brought back into the country to save kids’ lives, and send a strong message to the people that vaccines, like the COVID-19 ones, can be trusted.

I’ve worked with the FDA over the years, and I’ve found its cautious approach reassuring. It went through rigorous examination before accepting the COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use.

I know there’s some concern over the Chinese vaccines, a concern I share. But even if their efficacy doesn’t reach the level of some of the other vaccines, they at least provide a level of protection versus no vaccination at all. But for frontliners, especially health care workers, the use of a vaccine with the highest efficacy is the right thing to do.

We need to get the economy back on its feet, urgently. To do that fully, and safely, herd immunity is necessary, and the public must be willing to be vaccinated. Of course that means we need not only public acceptance, but also availability of enough doses. But that’s an entirely separate subject needing resolution, too.

Email: [email protected]