MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Leni Robredo on Sunday warned that using COVID-19 vaccines without emergency use approval only undermine local regulators, after President Rodrigo Duterte was inoculated with Sinopharm last week.
The president stirred controversy anew after receiving his first dose of the Chinese-made jab on May 3. The Food and Drug Administration has cleared six vaccines, but Sinopharm has yet to be included in the list.
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Over radio DZXL, Robredo said using jabs without EUA could harm efforts by the FDA, whose experts are tasked to check that vaccines coming in to the country undergo rigorous assessment.
"We have to be careful," she said in Filipino. "In a way, you are promoting the vaccine administered to you and that's difficult if it has no EUA. It makes a mockery of our existing regulatory agencies."
The country's No. 2 added that she would get a vaccine as soon as it is available. But she said she would wait for her turn to ensure that those who urgently need it would get it first.
"If we don't use vaccines with EUA, then it is as if the FDA has no purpose, right?" Robredo added.
This marks the second controversy involving Sinopharm in the Philippines. To date, no one has been held accountable over its illegal inoculation to the Presidential Security Group last year.
In January, Robredo said the smuggled vaccines could hurt efforts to build public trust on the jabs as she called for transparency on its investigation.
The president has since ordered the return of the 1,000 doses of Sinopharm to China after drawing criticism. But he also sought to qualify his decision as saying it was his doctor's choice, and "all things said, this is my life." — Christian Deiparine