Immunocompromised can now receive bivalent jab, says Herbosa
To speed up the utilization of bivalent Covid-19 vaccines, Department of Health Secretary Teodoro "Ted" Herbosa announced that they can now be administered to individuals under the A3 category or those who are immunocompromised.
"Ang uptake namin nasa 38 percent lang. Kaya because of that, dati healthcare workers at senior citizens lang [and pwede mabakunahan ng bivalent] so nag-decide kami, sige lahat na ng gustong magpa-vaccine ng booster, pwede na (Our uptake is only 38 percent. So because of that, previously only healthcare workers and senior citizens could be vaccinated with bivalent so we decided, all those who want to be vaccinated with a booster, can be vaccinated with a booster, they can)," he said in a radio interview on Friday, Aug. 4, noting that said vaccines will expire on Aug. 30.
Initially, only those in the A1 and A2 categories who had their second booster shot four months prior can get the bivalent jab as a third booster.
On June 4, the country received 391,000 doses of donated bivalent vaccines from the Lithuanian government.
The bivalent vaccine is a combination of two mRNA components, one of which corresponds to the original Wuhan strain and the other to the omicron variant BA.4 and BA.5 lineages.