Año: Only one Cabinet member vaccinated with donated unauthorized vaccine
MANILA, Philippines — Taking back his earlier pronouncements, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said Tuesday that it was just one Cabinet member who received coronavirus vaccination ahead of its approval from the country's Food and Drug Administration and despite an earlier statement that medical frontliners would be top priority.
"First of all I'd like to correct myself. I only know just one member of the Cabinet, but I cannot disclose his identity because I don't want to violate his right to privacy...I'm not sure actually about the vaccine, but I think the president mentioned that it's Sinopharm," the DILG chief said in an interview aired over ANC's "Matters of Fact".
"Let's make it clear, these vaccines were actually donated by probably someone who has access to that particular country, but there has been no commercial distribution. It's more voluntary on the part of the soldiers," he also said, adding that he was not the Cabinet member because he already has natural antibodies.
This follows disclosures by government officials, including President Rodrigo Duterte, that Cabinet members and personnel of the Presidential Security Group had already been vaccinated for the coronavirus.
It was also Año himself who later admitted that "some members" of the Presidential Security Group had indeed been vaccinated, though he made no mention of the PSG on Tuesday. The former military general held the same logic as Palace spokesperson Harry Roque in defending the use of the vaccine, saying that the vaccines were taken with the intent of protecting the president from possible transmission.
READ: Roque justifies soldiers getting jabs of unauthorized COVID-19 vaccine
"I don't see anything illegal there... What is prohibited is selling and distributing [the vaccine] without regulatory approval," he said.
"It's just as simple as soldiers protecting the president who want to be inoculated and they're able to get some donation on it and the country that provided it has an approved EUA (emergency use authorization). It's that simple. Let's not complicate things," he said.
Regardless of these latest statements, the Palace earlier in December said that 1.76 million health workers are first on the list of priority beneficiaries for COVID-19 vaccination while uniformed personnel like the military were the fifth priority in the government's vaccination plan.
No coronavirus vaccine has received the green light so far from the country’s Food and Drug Administration, which is required before it can be rolled out. The FDA has even been launching raids against the use of unauthorized vaccines like Sinopharm, though Año and Roque both insist that for government execs to be vaccinated with it is OK.
READ: 'VIP vaccination' bypassed health workers, mocks regulatory process — groups
- Latest
- Trending
