Vaccine confidence among Filipinos increasing-DOH


The Department of Health (DOH) said vaccine confidence among Filipinos is increasing.

Nurse Ethel Gabato from Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) receives Sinovac vaccine on the second day of the vaccination rollout for healthcare workers in the VIsayas region on March 5, 2021. (Photo by Juan Carlo de Vela/Manila Bulletin File Photo)

"We are seeing now that the confidence is increasing," Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a virtual forum Monday, May 3.

"We have been getting reports and observations that the confidence has increased as compared to the start of the rollout, wherein we saw many are still hesitant," she added.

Vergeire said according to their hospital chiefs, the healthcare workers who initially refused are now informing them that they want to get vaccinated already.

"Also in the community if they see the HCWs already vaccinated, their neighbor vaccinated, it will have a domino effect," she said.

Vergeire said this is the reason why they want to receive more coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines as soon as possible.

"We want the vaccine rollout to be hastened and expanded in order to take on that opportunity to get people vaccinated immediately," she said.

The DOH started the vaccine rollout last March.