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IATF member identifies 7 comorbidities eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccine
IATF member identifies 7 comorbidities eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccine
Do you have chronic respiratory disease, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, malignancy, diabetes mellitus or obesity?
If you have one of these illnesses or comorbidities, you are  eligible to receive the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines under the priority group A3.
Dr. John Wong, member of the Inter Agency Task Force Data Analytics Expert Group, explained that these seven pre-existing illnesses or comorbidities increase a person's risk for hospitalization or death, if they are infected with COVID-19.
"So, for example, if you look at chronic respiratory disease that's the first disease, these patients are at four times more likely to get severe disease when infected. About three times more likely to be admitted to an ICU, four times more likely to die," he said during the Department of Health forum on Monday, March 29.
"And overall, the risk is 3.5 times to get a adverse outcome. And you can see the same for all the other diseases, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, malignancies, diabetes mellitus, and even obesity," said Wong.
He said quite a large percentage of non elderly adult Filipinos have comorbidities.
"The elderly also have comorbidities but since they are already A2 (second priority after healthcare workers), if we exclude the elderly morbidities among elderly adult Filipinos, about 14. 5 million of them have underlying conditions," Wong said.
"So that means about 25 percent of non elderly adult Filipinos have underlying conditions. About 21 percent or 12.1 million of them have one underlying condition and 4.2 percent or 2.4 million of them have at least two underlying conditions," he added.
"So if they have any of the seven diseases, they can register for A3 and they can show proof of medical certificate from their attending physician or a prescription, a prescription that they are on medication," said Wong.
The government is planning to ramp up the vaccination by holding a simultaneous inoculation of health workers, senior citizens, and other priority groups due to the increase in COVID cases.
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, however, said that since the current supply of vaccines is not enough, there will be subprioritization.
"We wil have the subprioritization with the comorbidities and we will include first in the initial run...the comorbidities mentioned by Dr. John," she said.