Healthcare workers were urged to receive their Covid-19 vaccine booster shots to increase their protection against the dreaded disease.

Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said about half of the fully-vaccinated medical workers in the country have yet to take their booster doses.

She said that 95 percent of the country’s healthcare workers already completed their primary vaccination series.

“Pero dito sa booster doses, we only have an accomplishment of 49.07 percent. Ibig sabihin kalahati sa bilang ng ating mga healthcare workers ay ‘di pa nabibigyan ng booster doses (But when it comes to booster doses, we only have an accomplishment of 49.07 percent. It means, half of our healthcare workers have yet to receive their booster doses),” she said in a press briefing on Friday, April 22.

The low number of Covid-19 cases may have played a role on why there is a slow uptake in booster shots, said DOH-Technical Advisory Group member Dr. Anna Lisa Ong-Lim.

“It is actually a phenomenon observed across different vaccines. Pag nababawasan ang pagdami ng kaso, syempre nagiging kampante ang tao, bumababa ang uptake ng bakuna (When the number of cases decreases, of course people become complacent, then the uptake of vaccines also declines),” she said.

“At dahil dumadami na naman ang pool of susceptibles, tataas nanaman ang kaso (And because the pool of susceptibles increases, the cases will rise again). It's really human nature,” she added.

Ong-Lim said it is the right time to take booster shots while cases are still low.

“Ang (The) message to everybody, particularly those who are high risk like those with occupational exposure like healthcare workers, seniors, and those with comorbidities—let’s take advantage of this lull na bumababa ang mga kaso at magpabooster na tayo dahil hindi pa naman nawawala ang sakit na ito (that cases are on a downward trend, get boosted because this disease is still present),” she said.

Vergeire said that as of April 21, more than 67 million Filipinos were already fully vaccinated against Covid-19. Of this figure, 12.7 million received their booster shots.