Even a relative believes former President Benigno Aquino III should be held responsible for the Dengvaxia scandal.

Sen. Bam Aquino IV, who is seeking a new Senate term, said his cousin, the former President, should be held responsible for the use of the controversial anti-dengue vaccine that afflicted 830,000 persons subjected to mass immunization who are mostly children.

The Department of Justice is now conducting a probe into the Dengvaxia scandal which Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said would be resolved soon and the fate of individuals charged by prosecutors will be known.

“Yes, he is responsible for Dengvaxia because he made a decision to bring (the vaccine) in. Now, whether Dengvaxia did lead to those deaths or not is really the question,” Senator Aquino said on a morning cable television program.

Aquino, his Health Secretary Janette Garin, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad and several of his Cabinet secretaries were charged last year with plunder, malversation and graft before the Office of the Ombudsman for their involvement in the Dengvaxia program.

It was found during the House probe that the purchase of the Dengvaxia vaccine was approved by Aquino and Abad even if the program had no allocation in the 2016 national budget.

Two House panels then recommended the filing of criminal and administrative charges against Aquino and the other officials.

The House Committees on Good Government and Public Accountability and Health voted 14-0 to pass their joint report on the months-long investigation into the Dengvaxia controversy.

In a separate Senate probe, Sen. Richard Gordon said undue haste has been strongly established in the P3.65 billion immunization program using the vaccine.

Aquino also claimed during one of the hearings that he was unaware of the past records of Sanofi as an excuse for his approval of the P3.5-billion contract.

When asked if he knew of the string of cases the French firm of Sanofi was fined with tens to hundreds of millions of dollars, Aquino said he was not aware of it.

This was followed by another meeting in Paris, France on 1 December 2015 during the Climate Change Conference that he attended with Garin.

Aquino said during those meetings, he was not informed about the background of Sanofi.

The Department of Health has recorded 17,801 dengue cases in the first weeks of 2019 with 75 deaths as of 2 February this year.

The agency only recorded 14,825 cases of the disease from January to February last year.

DoH data show 19 out of 154 children died after receiving at least one dose of Dengvaxia and had dengue despite the vaccination.

Health Undersecretary Enrique Domingo said of the 19 individuals who had dengue, six were diagnosed clinically and 13 were confirmed to have the illness through laboratory tests. He gave the figures, which were updated as of 14 September, to reporters during a forum of health journalists.