Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto on Sunday said the government should stockpile on syringes and other supplies while it is waiting for the first batch of COVID-19 vaccines to be delivered to the Philippines.
Recto said it is imperative that the government is able to stock up on its “ancillary requirements” as it gears for the roll out of its COVID-19 vaccination program, such as syringes, refrigerators and personal protective equipment (PPEs) which are all available in the market.
“You don’t have to wait for the horse to arrive before you start building the cart,” Recto said in a statement.
“There are also things which cannot be taken for granted, like transportation, and even small things like ice boxes needed for the last mile,” Recto said.
Implementers of the national task force for COVID-19 earlier told senators during a recent Senate hearing that the current DOH stockpile of 30.5 million pieces of 0.5 ml syringes, 3.6 million pieces of mixing syringes, 3.8 million safety collector boxes, 3.6 million pieces of face masks, and 151,761 pieces of face shields are enough to meet initial vaccination requirements.
While this was the assurance given by the Department of Health (DOH) and the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF), who also assured that the current stocks can be scaled up, Recto said the national stockpile should also consider a possible surge in COVID cases on top of regular caseloads of public hospitals.
“The other important thing is that this should be forward-deployed now to towns. Those supplies cannot just trickle down during last minute,” Recto said.
“In the case of refrigerators that vaccines will need, there should now be a town-level listing of their availability. Vaccines are like ice cream, you don’t buy them in bulk without having a place to store them,” he said.
Recto also expressed confidence on the kind of vaccines that the Philippines would procure, saying it would be better if the vaccines purchased by the government are those that don’t need ultra-low temperature.
“Pfizer’s will need special equipment, while Johnson and Johnson’s reportedly has no need for refrigeration,” he said.
“But the good thing about regular freezers, is that these are not single-use disposables like syringes. That’s why after the pandemic, these can be used by hospitals or clinics,” he said.
“So these, like masks, syringes and PPEs either have long or no ‘best before’ expiry dates. So better to have them in stock now, than waste precious vials of vaccine because a clinic had run out of syringes,” Recto reiterated.