A former presidential economic adviser has called on the government for a “clear roadmap” and reforms in the use and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines in the country after billions of pesos worth of doses expired without being utilized.
Go Negosyo founder Joey Concepcion pushed for these suggestions during the Go Negosyo town hall meeting “Navigating from Pandemic to Endemic” held on Friday, June 29.
“We will support the vaccination, but the roadmap needs to be clear,” he said.
He added that the Philippines needs to “learn from this experience”, referring to the expiration of the vaccines days after the Department of Health (DOH) allowed second booster shots for adults 50 years and older and those 18 to 49 years with comorbidities.
“There are clearly several gaps that led to the expiry of the vaccines . . . Some of those gaps we tried to point out, such as the need to listen to the science coming from abroad, and to act swiftly considering that our economy is on the line,” he stated.
Concepcion was one of the first ones to warn about the impending expiration of the vaccines, sounding the alarm as early as April this year.
Since the Health department was the one which holds the inventory of the vaccines, the ex-economic adviser of former president Rodrigo Duterte said the agency could have stepped in.
“It would just be a simple computation as the expiry dates are very clear. They knew the levels we all had, from both the private sector, government procurements and donations from abroad,” he said.
READ: Private sector loses P5.1-B expiring Covid-19 vaccines—Concepcion
As of June 26, there are 29,795,970 available doses in the national cold chain facility, with more than four million confirmed to expire by July 31.
Concepcion said that the DOH, having the pertinent data, could have guided the Health Technology Assessment Council (HTAC) on the expiration of the vaccines..
Dr. Ted Herbosa, special adviser of the National Task Force Against Covid-19 and an expert on disaster and emergency medicine, also said during the town hall meeting that the DOH secretary could have overriden decisions because it was an emergency situation.
He also lamented the overlapping functions of several bodies that advise the government on the use of the vaccines.
Herbosa hit the HTAC for lacking the experience to handle the pandemic.
The HTAC was formed less than a year before the Covid-19 outbreak.
OCTA Research’s Prof. Ranjit Rye and Philippine College of Physicians president Dr. Maricar Limpin highlighted the need for the country to be better prepared as the State of Public Health Emergency expires this September.
For Concepcion, it is time for the government to decide whether to keep the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for Covid vaccines or encourage the pharmaceutical companies to apply for Certificates of Product Registration.
The latter will ensure that the Covid vaccines will remain available to the public, whether commercially or through government procurement and donations.
He also believes that future vaccination programs should be confined to only two brands of Covid-19 vaccines to make future private sector procurements more streamlined with the government.