The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday urged both the national and local government units in the Philippines to follow the sequence of prioritization in rolling out the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) vaccines coming from the Covax facility to ensure its impact on public health.

The WHO reiterated its position that those in the A1 (workers in frontline health services) and A2 (senior citizen) should be prioritized amid reports that certain local government units are reportedly “misallocating” Covax facility vaccines such as the United States-made Pfizer BioNTech vaccine for political purposes.

“We continue to urge the government and the local government units rolling out Covax vaccines to ensure that they follow the prioritization to maximize the impact of vaccines donated by the Covax facility,” Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinghe, WHO Representative to the Philippines, said during the regular Malacañang press briefing.

Abeyasinghe maintained that the WHO position has been and continues to be that the vaccines coming from the Covax facility which is a facility set up through contributions, overseas development assistance and bilateral donation to support low-to-middle income countries like the Philippines.

Earlier, a Viber group conversation between Pasay City barangay chairmen and Mayor Emi Calixto-Rubiano began circulating where the latter offered to inoculate the barangay leaders and their spouses with the newly arrived Pfizer vaccines.

“Gud am mga cap! May dumating kasi na Pfizer pero konting-konti lang po ito at bukas magsked po. Meron ba sa inyo po di pa nababakunahan sa mga cap? (Good a.m. Caps! A small number of Pfizer has arrived and a schedule will be set tomorrow. Is there anyone among the Caps who have not been vaccinated yet?),” Calixto said in a May 14 Viber conversation with barangay chairmen in one of the densely populated zones near Maricaban.

The rollout of the first shot of Pfizer vaccine in Pasay pushed through on May 17, 2021 at the Cuneta Astrodome and was reportedly attended by less than a hundred people, including barangay chairmen and a city councilor.

The first tranche of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccines totaling 193,050 doses from the Covax facility arrived in the country on May 10, 2021, two days after the arrival of 2,030,400 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine on May 8, bringing the total COVAX deliveries to the Philippines to 2,673,000 doses.

The WHO, through the Covax facility, is committed to provide the Philippines vaccines for 20 percent of its population that include health care workers and senior citizens

Abeyasinghe said one of the reasons why prioritization should be properly observed is to reduce the transmission in the A1 group while the largest number of deaths and severe cases are in the A2 group.

“We need to ensure that the most vulnerable are protected adequately and this needs to be prioritized,” the WHO official in the Philippines added.