The Department of Health (DOH) said it is currently studying the recommendation of experts to immediately vaccinate those who have recovered from coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
"May lumabas uli ngayon na mga bagong pag-aaral at mga bagong rekomendasyon galing sa ating mga eksperto. Kaya nag di-discuss na po tayo uli dahil nga sa high community transmission here in Metro Manila, we would like to protect immediately these people (New studies and new recommendations have come out from our experts. So we are discussing this right now also because of the high community transmission here in Metro Manila, we would like to protect these people immediately)," said DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire in a press briefing on Wednesday, April 7.
Vergeire said that the previous protocol was that people who contracted COVID-19 should be vaccinated after 90 days but it was shortened.
"We issued the amended protocol--from interval of 90 days to 14 days--but of late there were newer evidence and the objective of immediately protecting people," she said.
Vergeire said that "experts recommended to have the vaccine as soon as (the) patient recovers," adding that the DOH is now looking at this proposal.
"Ang rekomendasyon ngayon at gagawin nating pag-aaral at pag-uusapan para makakuha ng approval would be immediately after the patient has recovered, you can already provide or give the vaccine. Pero kailangan pa po natin ilagay natin ito sa protocol. So yung existing natin ngayon is 14 days after recovery (The current recommendation, which is now being studied, is to provide the vaccine immediately after the patient has recovered. But we still need to put it in the protocol. So the existing that we have now is 14 days after recovery)," she said.
A total of 737,569 individuals were already vaccinated against COVID-19 as of March 30.
Meanwhile, the Philippines has a total of 812,760 confirmed COVID-19 cases. Of this figure, 646,381 had already recovered, while 13, 817 died.