Philippines starts COVID-19 vaccination campaign
MANILA, Philippines (Updated 10:46 a.m.) — The Philippines finally kicked off its long-anticipated COVID-19 inoculation drive, which has been delayed for weeks, on Monday, with medical workers and government officials leading the country’s pandemic response among the first in the queue to receive the coveted shots.
The first dose of CoronaVac, the vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech, was given to University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital Director Gerardo Legaspi during a “symbolic” vaccination activity. He was the first one to receive an authorized COVID-19 shot in the country.
Food and Drug Administration Director General Eric Domingo, testing czar Vince Dizon and Metro Manila Development Authority chair Benjamin Abalos Jr. were also inoculated with the Sinovac vaccine.
The rollout came as the country saw the highest number of daily new infections in over four months. More than 576,000 COVID-19 cases have been reported, including over 12,000 deaths.
Aside from PGH, it will be administered to health workers at the Lung Center of the Philippines, Dr. Jose N. Rodriguez Memorial Medical Center and Sanitarium, Veterans Memorial Medical Center, Philippine National Police General Hospital and Victoriano Luna Medical Center.
The 600,000 doses of Sinovac arrived in the country Sunday. These are a donation from the Chinese government. Military personnel are also set to receive 100,000 doses.
Last year, members of the Presidential Security Group and several government officials jumped the vaccination line and used smuggled vaccines developed by China’s state-owned pharmaceutical firm Sinopharm in an unauthorized inoculation activity that surprised health authorities.
‘Doses of hope’
FDA approved the CoronaVac for emergency use a week ago but did not recommend the Chinese-made vaccine to medical frontliners due to a lower efficacy rate reported among the group. It cited results from late-stage trials in Brazil involving health workers exposed to COVID-19 that yielded only a 50.4% efficacy rate.
But the health department stressed that the same Brazil study found the vaccine is 100% effective in staving off moderate to severe cases. It was also found to have efficacy rates of 65.3% and 91.25% in trials held in Indonesia and Turkey, respectively.
Experts part of the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group approved the Sinovac jab to be offered to those willing to take it, reiterating is safe and effective.
But many health workers are reluctant and have decided to wait for other vaccines. They were given assurance that they will not lose their spot in the government’s priority list should they refuse to get vaccinated with CoronaVac.
Unlike competitor vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca, Sinovac has yet to submit critical Phase 3 clinical trial data to medical journals for peer review.
Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. called the donated Sinovac shots “doses of hope” as he called on Filipinos to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The Philippines is aiming to vaccinate 70 million people this year alone. But due to the shortage of supplies, the “major rollout” will only begin in the third quarter at the earliest.
The arrival of around 525,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine, distributed through the COVAX facility, was supposed to be on Monday but will be delayed for a week due to “global supply problem.”
The government faces the difficult task of conducting a massive inoculation program against COVID-19 following the botched rollout of Dengvaxia. This was highly-politicized despite unfounded claims that the vaccine caused the deaths of children inoculated with it during the previous administration.
Recent surveys show that only that almost half of the population are not inclined to get inoculated against COVID-19. The OCTA Research Group survey released last week found only 19% of adult Filipinos are willing to receive COVID-19 vaccines, while a January Pulse Asia survey showed only 32% want to get vaccinated.
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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