AFP: Troops can refuse Sinovac, but would have to pay
MANILA, Philippines — While all troops are required to get vaccinated against COVID-19, the Armed Forces of the Philippines said Friday that they can choose not to get the Sinovac shots allocated for them, but they would have to pay.
“Our soldiers can choose a different vaccine brand,” AFP spokesperson MGen. Edgard Arevalo said in Filipino during a briefing aired on state-run People’s Television. “But since these are not the vaccines allotted for the AFP, they would need to pay for the vaccine brand that they would get.”
It is unclear how this would work as currently, the three coronavirus vaccines created by Pfizer/BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Sinovac only have emergency use authorizations from the Food and Drug Administration, which means that they cannot be sold commercially.
A vaccine has to have a certificate of product registration from the FDA before it can hit the shelves.
Arevalo did not clearly explain how troops who would prefer a brand other than Sinovac would pay for vaccines, only saying that this is a “concept” available to them.
“If they really want to opt for another brand apart from the effective vaccine that we have allocated for our soldiers, then they can exercise that option,” he said partly in Filipino.
Of the 600,000 doses of the Chinese-made coronavirus vaccines, which Malacañang said is set to arrive Sunday, 100,000 are earmarked for the military personnel.
In explaining why troops are required to get the shots, Arevalo likened it to donning protective equipment during battle.
“We give our soldiers protective equipment during battle because they will fight a fierce enemy. We cannot allow it to be optional if they want to wear protective equipment or not,” he said in Filipino.
Arevalo said that they target to vaccinate 100 personnel per day at 47 vaccination sites across the country once the shots are available for use
The national government has so far secured two official deals for COVID-19 vaccine supplies in the Philippines, one with Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac and another with the Serum Institute of India.
Watch this space for bite-sized developments on the vaccines in the Philippines. (Main image by Markus Spiske via Unsplash)
Health Officer-in-Charge Maria Rosario Vergeire says the general population may now get their second booster jab.
"We're just waiting for the release of implementing guidelines, then we'll start rolling out our second booster for the general population," she says. — Gaea Katreena Cabico
Amid questions on vaccines being administered, the Department of Health assures the public all doses are safe and effective as the “process of extending shelf life goes through thorough stability studies.”
“The government ensures that every vaccine that is injected with an extended shelf life has gone through studies, and is still safe and effective against COVID-19,” it adds.
Government must increase vaccination capacity across the Philippines in anticipation of a surge of COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant of the corona virus, Sen. Risa Hontiveros says.
She says local government units and the private sector can work together to put up more vaccination centers and deploy more vaccination teams to get more people inoculated against COVID-19.
"The active COVID cases have nearly doubled in three days. The positivity rate is almost four times the ceiling set by the World Health Organization. Huwag na nating hintayin na sobrang lumala pa ang sitwasyon bago tayo gumawa ng paraan para mapabilis ang ating pagbabakuna."
FDA chief Eric Domingo says that its agency has given emergency approval for the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11.
The United States immunized around 900,000 children aged five-to-11 against Covid in the first week the Pfizer vaccine was authorized for them, a White House official says Wednesday.
Roughly 700,000 more have made appointments at pharmacies, White House Covid coordinator Jeff Zients tells reporters.
"The program is just getting up to full strength," he says, adding most of the shots were given in the last couple of days alone. — AFP
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