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Roque says COVID booster shots for health workers OK'd; DOH begs to differ
Roque says COVID booster shots for health workers OK'd; DOH begs to differ
Malacañang said the government's panel of vaccine experts has approved the proposal to give medical workers booster shots against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque made the statement after it was reported that five doctors who received both shots of the CoronaVac vaccine of Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinovac caught the disease and were now treated as severe cases.
In his press briefing on Monday, September 13, Roque was asked if the government was now considering giving health workers booster shots due to the incident. He said this was now moot and academic as the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NITAG) had already approved it.
"Moot and academic na po 'yan kasi nabalitaan ko naman na nagdesisyon na po ang NITAG, ang ating mga eksperto sa bakuna, na magbibigay po ng booster shots sa mga health workers (because I heard that the NIATG, our vaccine experts, have decided to give health workers booster shots)," he said.
However, the Department of Health (DOH) said otherwise.
"The DOH All Expert Group together with the DOH is still carefully deliberating this (booster shots)," the DOH said.
"There is no final recommendation yet from the experts, nor approval from the DOH on the administration of booster shots," it added.
As of September 12, a total of 16,794,545 individuals have been fully vaccinated. This translates to 21.6 percent of the country's target of 77.1 million people.
Meanwhile, the National Capital Region has fully vaccinated 5,870,204 people.
A total of 38,746,501 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered.
On September 2, Roque said that it was not yet time to talk about booster shots since many Filipinos are yet to be vaccinated.
Last month, Roque asked for the public’s patience and wait for the country to achieve population protection before getting booster shots. His appeal came amid reports of some residents going around different local government units (LGUs) to get the additional shot.
The government has allocated P45.4 billion for COVID-19 booster shots of 93.798 million fully vaccinated Filipinos in the proposed P5.02-trillion 2022 national budget.