With floods becoming so prevalent, would the Philippine government ever consider procuring leptospirosis vaccines for Filipinos?

This was Deputy Speaker Iloilo 4th district Rep. Ferjenel Biron's question to Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Ted Herbosa during the agency's budget hearing before the House Committee on Appropriations on Thursday night, Sept. 4.

Herbosa's answer? Not anytime soon.

"With unabated flood happening across Metro Manila, ang naging problema natin (what became our problem) recently Mr. Secretary is the rise of leptospirosis cases. I think on record we have more thann 3,000 cases and hundreds of fatalities," Biron said.

"Ano ang possibility (What is the possibility) that the DOH would adopt an approach where we can introduce leptospirosis vaccines?" he asked Herbosa, who led the agency's contingent to the hearing.

"The only existing leptospirosis vaccine I think is from China. And i think it is not approved in Europe and in America. So we'll have to study that," Herbosa said.

According to him, there's a need to "find out if that vaccine matches the variant of the leptospira that actually have prevalent here".

"Maybe we have to do viral studies of whether that's an effective vaccine or not. And then dadaan pa rin sa clinical trial (it will go through clinical trial)," he added.

Herbosa shared to the appropriations panel that a company with a leptospirosis vaccine had actually approached him, only for him to find out that the jab was the one from China.

He said there's a possibility that the private sector could get its hands on the leptospirosis vaccine "if the Food and Drug Administration approves it".

"What I've asked is to provide more doxycycline and other antibiotics to our high-risk population," he told Biron.

As far as addressing the leptospirosis problem is concerned, the DOH chief says he feels good solid waste management and rodent control must be promoted.

"They key is really decreasing the rodent population with rodent control measures. Maybe later, the vaccine--if [really] proven to be effective," Herbosa said.

Biron ended his interpellation on the topic by saying: "Perhaps Mr. secretary can look into that because in my research, I discovered that the strains that it covers in China is compatible with the strains in the Philippines."