PGH health workers picket vs Sinovac vaccine

MANILA, Philippines — Saying they deserved “only the best,” health workers of the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) yesterday staged a protest to demand free, safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines.

According to Alliance of Health Workers (AHW) president Robert Mendoza, half or some 2,500 to 3,000 PGH workers would not want to be inoculated with Sinovac’s vaccine due to its low efficacy rate of 50.4 percent.

Instead, Mendoza said government should speed up negotiations so that the country could acquire the other COVID-19 vaccines soon.

“The government should retain the priority list for vaccinations but we want vaccines with higher efficacy rates,” he added.

On the other hand, PGH spokesman Jonas del Rosario expressed willingness to be inoculated with the China-made Sinovac vaccine as planned.

“There are studies that if you survive COVID-19, you develop antibodies. But it remains unknown until when the antibodies will last. The vaccines can serve as your immune booster. We really don’t know how long the antibodies will last. So for me, even if I will be given only one shot, that’s OK for me already,” he said in a radio interview.

Del Rosario, a COVID-19 survivor who lost both parents to the virus, will be the first person to be inoculated legally.

Filipino Nurses United (FNU) president Maristela Abenojar also said their members did not want the Sinovac jab because it had passed only second stage clinical trials.

She also slammed the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE)’s proposal to deploy nurses to the UK in exchange for vaccine doses.

“We think there is really no coordination regarding that proposal which entails the lifting of the deployment cap for health workers,” Abenojar said, noting that nurses got “frustrated” and “sad” over DOLE’s plan.

“It seems that they belittle us. Why should we be seen as commodities that can be exchanged with something like the COVID-19 vaccines?” she added.

Locsin won’t take Sinovac jab

Meanwhile, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said yesterday that he would not be inoculated with a China-made COVID-19 vaccine, as he still prefers the one from Russia.

“No, waiting for the Russian vaccine,” Locsin tweeted. “I was waiting for what I earlier secured for the Philippines: 20 million doses of Pfizer but that ball was dropped. F***! After being pointed by my Russian friends to the accolades in Lancet journal, I’m going for Sputnik V,” he said.

Locsin earlier said Sputnik V is the only vaccine he would trust, citing a recent study by The Lancet showing more than 90-percent efficacy rate for the Russian vaccine. – Helen Flores