Commentary BMJ Glob Health: first published as 10.1136/bmjgh-2021-005422 on 2 March 2021. Downloaded from Communicating COVID-19 vaccines: lessons from the dengue vaccine controversy in the Philippines 1,2 2 Gideon Lasco , Vincen Gregory Yu To cite: Lasco G, Yu VG. INTRODUCTION: THE DENGUE VACCINE Summary box Communicating COVID-19 CONTROVERSY vaccines: lessons from the dengue vaccine In 2016, the Philippines embarked on an ► As countries around the world begin to roll out controversy in the Philippines. unprecedented mass immunisation campaign COVID-19 vaccines, vaccine safety communication BMJ Global Health against dengue fever, becoming the first Asian is more relevant than ever. 2021;6:e005422. doi:10.1136/ nation to authorise the commercial use of ► The dengue vaccine controversy in the Philippines bmjgh-2021-005422 Dengvaxia, the dengue vaccine manufactured offers lessons that can be applied to immunisation by the French pharmaceutical Sanofi Pasteur.1 programmes being organised today to address the Handling editor Seye Abimbola In December 2017, nearly 2 years since the COVID-19 pandemic. campaign started, Sanofi announced that ► Effective vaccine safety communication entails (re) Received 17 February 2021 building relationships of trust between government Revised 19 February 2021 Dengvaxia may actually cause ‘more severe and the public, upholding the credibility of scientific Accepted 20 February 2021 disease’ in those who have not had previous 2 institutions and maintaining transparency. dengue infection. By then, over 800,000 Fili- 1 ► It also involves viewing health against the broader pino schoolchildren had been inoculated. framework of equity, using an interdisciplinary ap- Criminal investigations against involved proach to health communication and putting a pre- government figures ensued, with one critic mium on public feedback. likening the mass vaccination programme to a ‘genocide against Filipino children’.3 The deaths of several children who had received scientific community. Building confidence the vaccine became a focal point of the in vaccines ‘implies trust in the vaccine (the http://gh.bmj.com/ scandal, as the Public Attorney’s Office ran product), trust in the vaccinator or other a highly publicised and dramatised investi- health professional (the provider), and gation, from televised autopsies to the chief trust in those who make the decisions about lawyer appearing alongside the grieving vaccine provision (the policy- maker)’.6 In 3–5 mothers in media interviews. The resulting other words, trust springs from credibility. ‘crisis of confidence’ against the public health One way to do this is through deference on September 29, 2021 by guest. Protected copyright. sector sent immunisation rates plummeting to non-partisan, expert institutions and to an all- time low, precipitating a measles upholding the credibility of these institu- outbreak across the country, exacerbating tions. In the dengue vaccine controversy, this 5 already- low immunisation rates. was seen in the involvement of the Philippine What went wrong, and how could a General Hospital’s independent panel of © Author(s) (or their different—or more deliberate—communi- employer(s)) 2021. Re- use experts who became the de facto unbiased permitted under CC BY-NC. No cations strategy have contributed to averting inquisitors of the sensationalised turn of commercial re- use. See rights those mistakes? In this article, we identify events. Unfortunately, though their investiga- and permissions. Published by several lessons on health communication tion virtually exonerated the vaccine from the BMJ. from the dengue vaccine controversy that 1 deaths of the children, these experts had to Department of Anthropology, may prove beneficial in light of the COVID-19 University of the Philippines compete with many other voices, mostly from Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines pandemic, given the emergent parallels government, that only undermined whatever 2Development Studies Program, between the two health crises. authority they may have held during the crisis. Ateneo de Manila University, Under COVID-19, the importance of Quezon City, Philippines letting scientific institutions take the lead Correspondence to TRUST AND CREDIBILITY in communications cannot be overstated. Dr Gideon Lasco; Fundamentally, effective health communica- These institutions remain our most credible pdlasco@ up. edu. ph tion entails trust between the public and the sources of information; thus, they must lead Lasco G, Yu VG. BMJ Global Health 2021;6:e005422. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2021-005422 1 BMJ Global Health BMJ Glob Health: first published as 10.1136/bmjgh-2021-005422 on 2 March 2021. Downloaded from without interference—or perceived interference—from news of numerous highly urbanised cities forging their partisan figures. Politicians may help inspire public confi- own vaccination deals with international pharmaceuti- dence towards vaccination, but too often they engage in cals have raised fears that such undertakings will result medical populist tropes, such as passing off unfounded to geographic inequity, with poorer cities and regions knowledge claims as facts, that are damaging to the at a disadvantage.13 Equity in vaccine communication scientific institutions.3 4 Left unchecked, these political therefore entails looking at vaccination against the tactics result in ‘vaccine messianism’, where politicians broader public health infrastructure, with clear guide- overemphasise their faith in vaccines, obscuring what the lines, audience segmentation and targeted campaigns scientific community has actually proven thus far,7 And emphasising—and insisting on—universal access to the a public that views vaccines as mere political tools being vaccines. This will not only streamline COVID-19 vaccina- wielded by actors in power, as what transpired during the tions, but in the long run, even improve coverage rates of dengue vaccine controversy, will only end up rejecting a existing vaccines. vaccine, no matter how efficacious. PARTICIPATION AND FEEDBACK TRANSPARENCY Finally, effective health communication means Related to trust and credibility is transparency, which accounting for participation and feedback. As shown by entails a consistent effort to disclose necessary informa- the dengue vaccine controversy, ‘expertise’ is not enough tion from all parties in any health- related endeavour. in the face of insufficient ‘buy-in’ from all concerned This means not just being upfront about factual informa- sectors, including within the scientific community. tion—the science of newly manufactured vaccines, their Participation means recognising that vaccine hesi- risks and limitations—but also about the circumstances tancy—and vaccine safety communication—involves with which they will be given to an anxious public. not just the scientific community but every other institu- The late disclosure of the dengue vaccine’s poten- tion across political and civil society. Against a predom- tially life- threatening effects led to accusations of lack inantly Western framework of science communication, of transparency and widespread speculation that the it will entail synchronous, interdisciplinary engagement programme, with its multibillion- peso funding, was in among: primary care workers who know the situation reality railroaded by corrupt practices.8 Separately, under on the ground (ie, hospital and community settings); COVID-19, violations of this cardinal rule of transparency social science and communications experts with the have already transpired in the Philippines even before necessary tools to understand ‘local vaccine culture’— public vaccinations have started: in December 2020, it the root of people’s fears, distrust and (mis)conceptions was discovered that no less than members of the Presi- regarding vaccines, as well as the healthcare system14–16; dential Security Group had been injected with the yet-to- media workers who must ensure that the information be- approved Sinopharm vaccines, smuggled from China; being relayed to the public do not get sensationalised or http://gh.bmj.com/ worse, a black market of illegal vaccinations among distorted; and even religious and civil society groups with Chinese nationals in the country was apparently being established influence over their communities. Addition- tolerated by the government.9 10 These situations, instead ally, this will also entail ‘starting young’—integrating and of pre-empting feelings of suspicion towards vaccines, emphasising the importance of healthcare communica- only worsen the public’s mistrust towards their govern- tions into the training curricula of hospitals and medical ment and, consequently, towards vaccines themselves. 17 schools. on September 29, 2021 by guest. Protected copyright. Most importantly, participatory communication EQUITY means putting a premium on feedback, showing people Another important tenet is equity—the vulnerable and that their government is responding to them. With the marginalised on equal footing with the privileged. In dengue vaccine controversy, the failure of government to the dengue vaccine controversy, a point of inequity was preserve feedback mechanisms led to the rise of ‘moral initially raised by politicians who questioned the selec- entrepreneurs’ who manufactured competing narratives tion process for the programme’s implementation; why, and overwhelmed communication channels, both in during an election year, certain administrative regions mass and social media.4 were supposedly ‘prioritised’