Very few adverse events have been reported among the Filipinos who got inoculated against coronavirus disease (COVID-19), a vaccine expert said Tuesday, June 8.
As of June 7, the government has so far vaccinated 5.9 million Filipinos against the virus.
Dr. Lulu Bravo, Executive Director of the Philippine Foundation for Vaccination, said based on their monitoring, only three percent of those who got their COVID-19 vaccine reported adverse events.
"Ito ang magandang balita, almost three months of our monitoring wala kaming nakitang masamang epekto ng bakuna. Walang red flag, walang masamang signal. Kung titingnan mo sa clinical trials, ang adverse events go up as high as 40 percent, pero yung mga reported, only three percent (This is the good news, in almost three months of our monitoring, we have not seen any severe adverse effects of the vaccines. No red flags, no bad signals. If you look at clinical trials, adverse events go up as high as 40 percent, but we only recorded three percent)," Bravo said.
"Sa mahigit na limang milyong nabakunahan sa Pilipinas at mahigit isang daang ekspertong tumututok sa adverse events, wala po kaming nakikita na makakasama sa pagbabakuna. Ang nakakapag-ospital po at masamang nangyayari ay hindi nagagamot ang kanilang underlying condition (Of the more than five million Filipinos vaccinated and over one hundred experts focusing on adverse events, we do not see anything that can go wrong with vaccination. What makes them hospitalized is that because of their untreated underlying conditions)," the expert noted.
Bravo said that the most common adverse effects of inoculation were fever, headache, stomachache, nausea, and diarrhea.
The Philippines has so far received 9.3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines and is expecting 11 million to arrive this month, including 4.5 million from Sinovac Biotech Ltd., 2.28 million from Pfizer Inc., two million from AstraZeneca Plc through COVAX Facility, and 250,000 from Moderna Inc.