The Department of Health (DOH) is coordinating with global vaccine-sharing platform COVAX Facility if the latter could replace the expired Covid-19 vaccines procured by the private sector.
Go Negosyo founder Joey Concepcion said on Wednesday, July 28, that more than four million vaccine doses worth P5.1 billion, which were procured by the private sector, have already expired.
“We recognized that there have been stocks that have expired and efforts are ongoing now to work with our Covax Facility because they will be able to exchange the expiry vaccines of the national government and so inquiries are being worked out whether they could do the same for the private sector vaccines,” said DOH Officer-in-Charge Undersecretary of Public Health Services Team Beverly Ho in a press briefing on Thursday, July 28.
Concepcion criticized the move of the Health department for its supposed late decision in expanding the coverage of second Covid-19 booster vaccination to other sectors.
Ho defended the move of the DOH, saying that they want to “assure the public that there is a process of making sure that the entire program uses vaccines that are safe—we abide by evidence when we expand indications or use of our vaccines.”
“With that as a principle, it got us to where we are now which is 71 million Filipinos vaccinated, able to open the economy, not having issues for the healthcare/ hospital utilization because of this cooperation that we’ve had with each of the experts doing their roles as well as the private sector supporting the government in the rollout,” she said.
“When we stick to that principle of working together, each one having their roles, checks and balances are available and that’s why we are able to be confident to tell the public that this is a science-based and a very safe vaccination program that we’re running,” she added.
The DOH official said it is better to just work together instead of resorting to blaming.
“My final point is that we still have very low first booster coverage—20 percent of those vaccinated. So ang dami pang pwedeng bakunahan. It is not just about this policy that we came out, but we can actually optimize the stocks initiall those for the first booster,” said Ho.
“Ang importante (What is important is that), we have to work together, less sisihan (blaming) but actually working towards making sure that we reach the PinasLakas target,” she added.
‘I beg to disagree’
Meanwhile, Dr. Anna Ong-Lim, professor and chief of Infectious and Tropical Disease in Pediatrics of Philippine General Hospital, supported the state health agency.
"Ito bang pag expire ng mag bakuna dahil ba iyan sa ngayon lang inaaprove ang second booster recommendation? (Is the expiration of these vaccines because the second booster recommendation has been approved just now?) I would beg to disagree. Kasi (Because) these are the same vaccines that were available for the first booster and even the primary series," said Ong-Lim.
Ong-Lim said this can be attributed to some gaps. It could be operational, management of supply chain, or public acceptance of Covid-19 vaccines.
“I think it is more productive to identify the gaps that led to why this happened. And those are the problems that need to be resolved,” she said.