EPIDEMIC
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FORTUNE.COM // DECEMBER 2019
ther, opening the door to infectious diseases
once believed to be on the wane. Over the past
two years, there have been new outbreaks of
measles and polio. When it comes to com-
bating dengue itself—a scourge that can be
bone-crushingly painful for some and deadly
for others, and which in recent decades has
emerged as the world’s fastest-spreading and
most common mosquito-borne illness—the
opportunity cost has been grave as well.
Which brings up the first of this tale’s tragic,
even Shakespearean twists: the fact that the
Dengvaxia controversy may well bury forever a
vaccine that actually works—not for everyone
but for huge swaths of populations in countries
where dengue is an urgent and growing public
health problem. Indeed, if the vaccine were an
active part of global health campaigns, it would
likely save many lives annually. That’s plain to
see, given that devastating dengue outbreaks
have tested governments this year from Paki-
stan to Honduras to, yes, the Philippines.
Twist No. 2 is this: There is a good chance
that Dengvaxia didn’t cause the tragic deaths
of those 148 children in the Facebook videos.
A Fiasco Foretold
INNOCUOUSLY TITLED “Sanofi updates informa-
tion on dengue vaccine,” the press release
went out to the world, in both French and
English, at 11:36 a.m. Eastern Time on
Nov. 29, 2017. In the Philippines, the coun-
try where the most doses of the world’s first
Parents holding
pictures of de-
ceased children
who had received
the Dengvaxia
vaccine at a hear-
ing in the Senate
building in Manila
on Feb. 21, 2018.
NO
EL
CE
LIS
—A
FP
VI
A^ G
ET
TY
IM
AG
ES
