Vaccine Expert Panel (VEP) Chairperson Dr. Nina Gloriani urged the national government to consider the administration of the fourth vaccine shot or the second booster jab to the general population.
“Maybe we should really consider now with all these uptick . We do not want to get unprepared again, like we did with Delta. Data have shown that booster doses actually expound immune responses against these variants, so that is very important,” said Gloriani in an interview over ANC on Thursday, June 16.
Currently, the population who are eligible to avail a second booster jab includes the following: senior citizens, immunocompromised individuals, as well as health workers.
Meanwhile, Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, in a media forum held on Wednesday, June 15, said that second booster shots will only be given to the general population if it receives an amended emergency use authorization (EUA) from the Philippine Food and Drug Administration (PH), as well as the Health Technology Assessment Council.
DOH’s National Covid-19 Vaccination Dashboard showed that as of June 4, a total of 70,169,705 individuals in the country have so far completed their primary dose of Covid-19 vaccines. Of this number, only 14,588,463 have received their first booster jab.
Around 580,000 individuals have so far received their second booster dose.