The Department of Health (DOH) said that the country's Covid-19 vaccine wastage has been minimal so far— at less than two percent.
“This is lower than the 10 percent that the WHO (World Health Organization) has given as a standard for the vaccine wastage all over the globe,” said DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire.
Vergeire said that these vaccines were tagged as wastage after some have been damaged due to calamities, expired, or contaminated.
As of April 13, a total of 244,732,960 vaccine doses were delivered in the Philippines, based on the data of the National Task Force Against Covid-19.
Vergeire, meanwhile, said that they are currently coordinating with vaccine manufacturers for the possible extension of shelf-life of some vaccines.
“Hanggang sa ngayon (Until now), we are still awaiting for the approval of the extension of shelf-life of some vaccines that we have in stock na malapit na ang (that are nearing) expiry,” she said.
“We cannot give you an accurate number right now as to how much will be expiring in April, May, June, or the other months to come,” she added.
Vaccine donation
In a related development, Vergeire said that they are still coordinating with some countries as the government is set to donate some of the country's vaccines.
"We have to go through a lot of processes. Definitely, itong sa Myanmar ay ongoing na talaga ang discussion. Sa Papua New Guinea, hindi pa po nauumpisahan ang mga pag-uusap, isa lang po siya sa mga proposed na countries na pwedeng pagbigyan ng ating mga bakuna (for Myanmar, the discussion is now ongoing. For Papua New Guinea, the discussions have not started yet, it is just one of the proposed countries that can be recipients of these vaccines),” she said.
“Ang iniintend na i-donate sa (The vaccines that are intended to be donated) in Myanmar ay (are) Sputnik V components 1 and 2 and these would be worth around five million doses of vaccines,” she added.