President Duterte wanted coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines to be distributed to the local government units (LGUs) immediately, saying he will not accept it if the country will lose the fight against COVID-19 just because the shots expired due to negligence.
Duterte made the statement after Vaccine Czar Carlito Galvez Jr. pointed out the present challenge of using all 5,155,957 COVID-19 vaccine doses in the country's inventory at "the soonest possible time" because of their shelf life.
In his pre-recorded public address on Thursday, the President said he had no doubt that Galvez and his team will be able to carry out their duties well but noted that they may have to step it up.
"We know that you can do it but see to it that the mechanism, ‘yong infrastructure ninyo sa baba kailangan (your infrastructures) must be able to come up with the numbers required kasi itong mga bakuna may ano ito, may (because these vaccines have) expiry date," he said.
"It cannot be effective forever. The efficacy loses in a less period of time than other medications," he added.
According to the President, the vaccines have to be handled correctly and distributed as soon as possible because he does not want the country to lose the battle against COVID-19 just because the shots expired.
"Ito, kailangan ng (This needs) handling, special kind of handling. It has to be --- there’s a certain temperature that you have to maintain. Otherwise, you would lose out everything. It would lose its effectiveness," he said.
"I am just saying this because I do not want to lose the battle here through negligence," he added.
Duterte asked for cooperation so the vaccines that were procured and donated will not go to waste.
"Magtulung-tulungan na lang (We should just help each other) so that we would not waste the vaccines because we were not able to deliver it on time," he said.
"That would be a problem kung mag-expire ‘yan dito sa kamay sa itaas at hindi kaagad napunta doon sa baba (if these expired on our hands because we were not able to immediately distribute them)," he added.
The country rolled out its vaccination program on March 1, starting with healthcare workers. So far, the country has acquired 7,759,050 COVID-19 vaccine doses with 2,623,093 administered.