Vice President Leni Robredo has reminded the government to enforce the rules set by the World Health Organization (WHO)-led COVAX facility not only to Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, but to other coronavirus vaccines it donated as well.
Robredo emphasized that the donated COVID-19 vaccines must first go to health workers (A1), senior citizens (A2), and indigent citizens (A5) under COVAX’s conditions.
Although she did not mention them, persons with comorbities, or A3, in the government’s vaccine priority list are also included in the rules set by COVAX.
“Eto talaga iyong intensyon nito. Hindi lang Pfizer, pero iyong lahat na galing sa COVAX facility. Ang intent talaga nito para doon sa mga mas pinakanangangailangan at para doon sa walang capacity na bumili ng bakuna on their own (This is really its intention. It applies not only Pfizer, but to all vaccines that come from COVAX facility. The intent of it is really for those who need it more and those don’t have the capacity to buy a vaccine on their own),” she said over dzXL.
“So ito talaga kabahagi ito sa usapan, kaya ‘di ba iyong umpisa mga nakikita natin na may nagja-jump ng line, pinupuna natin (So this is really part of the agreement, that’s why at the start when we were seeing someone jumping the line, we were criticizing them),” Robredo added.
The vice president made the statement in reaction to President Duterte’s directive that the sought-after Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines from the COVAX facility will be given to the country’s indigent population.
READ: https://mb.com.ph/2021/05/20/duterte-orders-distribution-of-pfizer-vaccines-to-indigent-population/
This order, however, will most likely apply to the next shipment of 2.2 million doses of Pfizer, which the government expects to arrive by end of this month.
The initial batch of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines from COVAX comprising 193,000 doses arrived on May 10. These have been already administered or reserved as second doses.
The country also received more than 2.5 million COVID-19 shots developed by United Kingdom’s Oxford-AstraZeneca through the global vaccine-sharing scheme.
The Philippines’ number of COVID-19 vaccine doses is now over 8 million, with 3.3 million shots as of Tuesday have been administered to individuals in the priority groups—health workers, senior citizens, and those with comorbidities.
Robredo noted the significant improvement in the COVID-19 vaccination rollout, with more doses have already been administered to Filipinos daily.