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Avoid being 'brand conscious' with COVID-19 vaccines, Galvez tells LGUs
Avoid being 'brand conscious' with COVID-19 vaccines, Galvez tells LGUs
Local government units (LGUs) should not be "brand conscious" when it comes to accepting coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines that are given to them for free by the national government, Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. disclosed Monday, July 19.
Galvez, vaccine czar and chief implementer of the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19, issued the remark after hearing reports that some residents in Cagayan de Oro City in Misamis Oriental refused to be inoculated with the Russian vaccine Sputnik V.
"Ang directive ni Presidente , dapat hindi tayo brand conscious. Kung tutuusin based sa deliberation ng FDA , may equal protection ang vaccines. May individual characteristics sila na lahat 'yon they prevent death and hospitalization (The directive of President is that we should not be brand conscious. As a matter of fact based on the deliberation of the FDA, all the vaccines have equal protection. They have individual characteristis wherein they prevent death and hospitalization)," said Galvez.
He said that if an LGU prefers only one vaccine, there will only be a single source of jab and the supply of other brands will be "wasted."
He said this might lead to a deficiency in the supply of the jabs in a particular area and the slowed vaccination of priority sectors including the medical frontliners, senior citizens, and persons with co-morbidity.
According to DOH, Sputnik V, manufactured by the Gamaleya Research Institute, is 91.6 percent effective in preventing symptomatic infections and 100 percent effective in preventing moderate and severe infections. It is taken in two doses.
"Ang one shot or 'yong Component Number 1 nito ay parang AstraZeneca 'yan, you are already protected 80 percent. Iyan ang hindi alam ng mga tao (With just one shot or the Component Number 1, it's like the AstraZeneca vaccine where you are already protected 80 percent. This is what the people don't know)," Galvez said.
But the vaccine efficiency further increases if an individual completes the two-dose inoculation using the Sputnik V vaccine, he stressed.
Galvez said the national government will prioritize the deployment of additional supply of vaccines in Cagayan de Oro City to protect its adjacent provinces and cities in Misamis Oriental and in the entire Northern Mindanao (Region 10) amid the emerging threat of the more transmissible Delta variant.
Last week, the DOH detected 16 new cases of Delta variants including six cases from Region 10.
"We are prioritizing the deployment of more vaccines in highly-urbanized areas because these areas are also where majority of the infections are coming," the vaccine czar noted.
Due to increased economic and tourism activities in highly urbanized areas such as Cagayan de Oro, Galvez said more people freely come and go in the city which may lead to the spread of undetected cases in nearby areas.
Galvez was accompanied by Health Sec. Francisco Duque III and other top officials of the NTF and Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID) during a visit of the Coordinated Operations to Defeat Epidemic (CODE) Team in Cagayan de Oro City.
The joint teams were in the area to monitor the implementation of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), the strictest form of community quarantine, until July 31.
As of July 18, Region 10 recorded a total of 36,241 cases based on the monitoring of the Department of Health (DOH).
Of these, a total of 11,131 cases were found in Cagayan de Oro City. There were 9,639 individuals who have recovered, 516 cases who died, and 976 cases that are still being monitored in the city.