DOH: 7 million COVID-19 jabs expired due to oversupply

MANILA, Philippines — Over seven million vials of COVID-19 vaccines in the country expired due to oversupply as there was low demand, the Department of Health (DOH) said on Thursday.

Last Tuesday, the Commission on Audit (COA) flagged the DOH for expired supplies worth P11,186,368,902.47, including 7,035,161 vials of COVID-19 vaccines, stockpiled in the agency’s warehouse and public health facilities.

The DOH explained that having expired COVID-19 vaccines is not unique to the Philippines as it has been observed in other countries as early as April 2022.

“In April 2022, the international scientific community already pointed to COVID-19 vaccine wastage rates of up to 30 percent,” it noted.

“Researchers pointed out an imbalance between supply and demand for these vaccines that were much needed in a time of global emergency,” the department added.

The DOH though gave COA assurance that it has already adopted measures that can help avoid similar wastage.

“The DOH-Health Emergency Management Bureau now has guidelines on the management of logistics for use during emergencies/disasters, particularly for the proper storage conditions on health commodities considering their shelf life, to avoid wastage,” said the DOH.

It added that other operating units within the DOH have also designed and implemented similar strategies to minimize or avoid wastage in the future.

Oversupply, low demand

The DOH said the sudden global emergence of the COVID-19 prompted multiple efforts to acquire the vaccines, thereby resulting in an abundance of supply.

 “The COVID-19 vaccination exercise did not have the benefit of years of planning and preparation, like other routine and established vaccination programs. It was an emergency, a matter of life and death. Similar to many governments worldwide, the Philippine government, through the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, decided to have more COVID-19 vaccines available for all Filipinos at the soonest possible time, than none at all,” the DOH said in a statement.

“Even as the national government advised all concerned that it would be procuring for all Filipinos, some local government units and private sector entities insisted on procuring their own vaccines. As more and more doses arrived from the triple procurement efforts, there were even donations that came from the COVAX facility and from bilateral channels,” it said further.

However, the DOH said, developments surrounding COVID-19 have resulted to a sharp decline in demand for vaccines.

“The public started seeing COVID-19 as similar to seasonal influenza, so more vaccinated people decided not to receive a booster shot,” it noted.

The DOH likewise pointed out the high number of individuals having natural immunity after getting afflicted with the virus during the pandemic.

“The mild but highly transmissible Omicron variant strengthened herd immunity through natural infection, so less people experienced critical symptoms,” the DOH said.