When issues about the dengue vaccine Dengvaxia cropped up, among the points raised was how the Aquino government made tons of money for putting a P1000 price tag on a dose of Dengvaxia vaccine when it only allegedly costs 12 rupees (around P9.38, as of writing) in India. We wrote an article that pointed out how Dengvaxia is not yet sold in India, based reports that Sanofi Pasteur Philippine medical director Ruby Dizon said their vaccine is not sold in India and that the French pharmaceutical company is still seeking the last phase of clinical trials in India before the vaccine gets approved for selling in the country.
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Some were even relieved the Indian government has not yet authorized the sale of the vaccine in their country. Business Standard, one of India’s business daily, published an article about how their government’s red tape helped the country narrowly avoid a health crisis.
“The delay by the health ministry in approving the sale of the first-ever dengue vaccine developed by French pharmaceutical major Sanofi Pasteur might seem like another case of red tape, but the health crisis unfolding in the Philippines shows that India might have narrowly avoided a disaster,” reported the Business Standard.
The drug controller general of India, G N Singh, explained the delay in the approval of Dengvaxia.
“This vaccine has been pending with us for two years. We do not plan to approve it till we are satisfied, irrespective of what other drug regulators do,” he said. “The company had sought a clinical trial waiver. We need to evaluate such requests. But, we will not approve any vaccine without being satisfied with the quality and efficacy.”
To clarify things, despite the ecommerce site IndiaMart having vendors claiming to be selling the dengue vaccine in India, their health ministry has not approved Dengvaxia’s sale in their country.
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Then, a tipster alerted us to a message from Astellas Pharma India Private Limited to the public about them not selling products on IndiaMart. In the online marketplace, the name “Astellas Pharma India” was used as the seller of the Dengvaxia vaccine that allegedly costs only 12 rupees per piece. This is the same price tag that was being shared by several netizens who are questioning why the Department of Health under the Aquino government agreed to pay P1000 per dose of the vaccine to Sanofi Pasteur when it only costs a little over P9 in India.
In its website, Astellas Pharma India Private Limited wrote:
“Please be informed that some unauthorized persons are unlawfully marketing certain pharmaceutical/healthcare products on an online portal in the name of ‘Astellas Pharma India Pvt Ltd ’ and/or its parent company, Astellas Pharma Inc. and through other names misrepresenting themself as ‘Astellas Pharma’ using our actual logo and office address.
Astellas Pharma India Pvt Ltd and its parent company, Astellas Pharma Inc., do not market or sell any products via any online portals including, but not limited to, IndiaMart. So, please do not purchase any products in the name including “Astellas” online.
Presently, Astellas Pharma India Pvt Ltd markets and sells in India the products listed on the website.
This information is issued in public interest and to safeguard the interests of the patients.”
This meant that the real Astellas Pharma is not the one selling the 12-rupee a piece of Dengvaxia vaccine on IndiaMart. The Japanese pharmaceutical company’s name was merely used by scammers.
IndiaMart may not be all that strict in regulating the participating vendors on their website. USA Today reported back in February 2016 that some of IndiaMart’s vendors are selling illicit products, such as ecstasy, methamphetamine, and LSD. Another report from Inc42, an Indian media platform, in August 2017 showed how IndiaMart and three other ecommerce sites were issued a notice for the alleged sale of wildlife items. So it could have been easy for a scammer using Astellas Pharma’s name to sell Dengvaxia even if it is not yet approved by the Indian government, noting how IndiaMart’s lack of selectiveness when it comes to accepting vendors.
A netizen, lawyer Rodolfo Cabado, said our article debunking the P9 Dengvaxia vaccine in India is confusing because while we said we found reports that the vaccine is not yet in India, we also wrote that we found several vendors selling it on IndiaMart at different prices.
We pointed out how IndiaMart has other vendors selling Dengvaxia to show that even in the ecommerce website alone, we were also confused with the huge differences in the prices of the vaccine. What we failed to note in our first article, though, was how unreliable the ecommerce website looked when it has vendors promoting the same product with a glaring disparity in their selling prices.
Atty. Cabado also used the same 12-rupee price tag when he talked about Dengvaxia in his December 8 post on Facebook.
It was another netizen who brought our article to his attention, which got them started on a debate over why IndiaMart had vendors selling the dengue vaccine in India. To this, the netizen pointed out that it was “easy to make a counterfeit.”
Now, the fact that we learned how Astellas Pharma’s name was used by a scammer/poser to sell what they claimed to be Dengvaxia for only 12 rupees a piece made it all the more clear that not all the vendors and all the products sold on IndiaMart can be trusted.
Other netizens also questioned why other companies aside from Sanofi would be selling Dengvaxia when it is patented by the French pharmaceutical company.
And this is true, Dengvaxia, or CYD-TDV, touted as the world’s first dengue vaccine, was indeed patented, as mentioned in this NCBI article published in February 2017.
The price tag of 12 rupees a piece of Dengvaxia vaccine in India is fake, considering how the vendor selling it is a poser that used the name of the real pharma company, Astellas Pharma India Private Limited. India’s health ministry has not approved for selling in India, so those who are selling the vaccine must be checked thoroughly as they might turn out to be posers and scammers, too.
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