Philippines may donate expiring vaccines

MANILA, Philippines — With the country’s vaccine supply now stable and COVID cases declining, the government is looking to donate some vaccines nearing expiry to other countries.

Speaking at the Laging Handa public briefing yesterday, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said the Philippines is inclined to donate some of the vaccines to countries like Myanmar, Cambodia and Africa.

According to Duque, the National Vaccination Operations Center (NVOC) made the recommendation to donate the unused vaccines and they are just assessing how much will be donated.

Duque noted that AstraZeneca has approved to extend by three months the shelf life of vaccines nearing expiry. If extended, Duque said the jabs would likely remain here while those not extended will be donated.

Duque said the government would inform the COVAX, since most of the nearly expired vaccines came from the facility. The country has received a total of 227,494,890 doses, consisting of donations and those procured by government and the private sector.

For his part, Philippine Medical Association president Benny Atienza said their member doctors would be opening their private clinics to those who want to get inoculated against COVID-19.

‘Jabs in job sites’

The government is eyeing a higher vaccination output in the next months through special programs that aim to vaccinate millions of Filipinos, National Task Force (NTF) against COVID-19 chief implementer Carlito Galvez Jr. said yesterday.

“With the declaration of Alert Level 1, we have been experiencing a saturation point in our vaccination centers with only the pediatric sector that dominates our vaccination sites. So most of our vaccination sites have become vacant. So we will be needing other strategies to gather more vaccinees,” Galvez said.

Among the new strategies is the “Jabs in Job Sites” program where vaccination teams visit workplaces to encourage employees to get primary and booster doses. The program kicked off on Tuesday at the Teleperformance office in Makati City.

The government’s fourth National Vaccination Days from March 10 to 12 aims to vaccinate 1.8 million Filipinos aged 12 and up nationwide. The first vaccination drive last year jabbed 9.9 million, the second phase administered 7.4 million doses, while the third phase three million doses.

Difficulty

NVOC chair and Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said they have a lower vaccination target for the fourth NVD because it’s more difficult to find the remaining unvaccinated individuals.

“We have already reached 64 million so it is more difficult to look for the unvaccinated, unlike before that they will flock to the vaccination sites. Now, they don’t want to go to the big vaccination sites,” Cabotaje said.

But Cabotaje said the government is still exerting efforts to meet its target to full vaccinate 70 million individuals by end of March and 90 million by end of June.

The NTF yesterday said they are boosting partnerships with pharmacies and private clinics to increase the administration of booster shots. Based on latest data, the government has only administered 10,616,590 booster shots, or 14.71 percent of the 72.16 million target this year.

As of March 7, the country has administered a total of 137,085,697 vaccine doses nationwide, in which 63,793,957 Filipinos are now fully vaccinated, while 10,616,590 individuals have received their third dose or booster shots. – Neil Jayson Servallos, Romina Cabrera