Amid the threat of Covid-19 and its emerging sub variants, a health expert urged the national government to change the country’s definition of “fully vaccinated.”
Health reform advocate and former special adviser of the National Task Force (NTF) against Covid-19 Dr. Anthony “Tony” Leachon, on Sunday, June 5, said that now is the time to change the definition of fully vaccinated to include the third dose or first booster jab of Covid-19 vaccine.
“Hindi natin nabigyan ng attention yung communication nyan. Ang paniniwala ng tao ang kumpletong bakuna o minimum ay dalawang . Dapat i-redefine natin na at least three doses to protect us from developing Omicron para hindi tayo maospital (We did not pay attention to that communication. Right now, Filipinos believe that the complete vaccine or minimum jab is two doses only. We must redefine this to at least three doses to protect us from developing Omicron so that we will not be hospitalized),” said Leachon in an interview over DZRH.
“Yung communication process nyan ay bumaba. Noong kinakailangan na nating magpabakuna dahil magwe-wane ang immunity natin at magkakaroon tayo ng expiring vaccines, tiyaka tayo nagmadali (The communication process has dropped. We only pushed for the inoculation of booster jabs when we needed to get vaccinated because of our waning immunity and expiring vaccines),” he furthered.
The Department of Health’s (DOH) National Covid-19 Vaccination Dashboard showed that as of Saturday, June 4, a total of 71,001,585 individuals have completed their primary doses of Covid-19 jabs. Of this number, only 14,280,461 Filipinos have so far been boosted against the disease.
Meanwhile, DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire in a press briefing on Monday, June 3, said that the challenge for increasing booster jabs in the country remains, adding that the lifting of the state of calamity should further be discussed despite the low number of newly-reported Covid-19 infections in the Philippines.