DOH: Bulk of AstraZeneca COVID-19 shots soon to expire to be given as first dose
MANILA, Philippines — The bulk of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines set to expire soon will be administered as first dose, the Department of Health said Wednesday.
In an interview with ABS-CBN’s Teleradyo, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the more than two million AstraZeneca vaccine doses that arrived in the country over the weekend will expire in June and July.
To avoid wasting the limited supplies of shots, Vergeire said 1.5 million jabs will be administered as the first dose, while the remaining 500,000 will be allocated as the second dose.
“We have distributed already and we are speeding up vaccination. We’ve seen that we can consume the vaccines and they will not go to waste,” she said in a mix of English and Filipino.
Dr. Tony Leachon, a former adviser to the National Task Force against COVID-19, said the government should allow the private sector to distribute AstraZeneca vaccines as millions of jabs near expiration.
“The government should just give the stocks that will expire in June to the competent private sector then let them do the vaccination,” Leachon said in a tweet.
“We’re still at the 40,000 to 60,000 vaccinations per day. At this rate, we can never finish the AstraZeneca 1.5 [million] stocks that will expire in June. We’re just halfway through them. What a waste,” he added.
The govt should just give the stocks that will expire in June to the competent private sector then let them do the vaccination.
— Tony Leachon MD (@DrTonyLeachon) May 11, 2021
They can just give back what they got when their stocks arrive in June.
The govt should open the vaccines to A4 Category already . @iamkarendavila https://t.co/LwTTwrzkie
Widen vaccination
Leachon also said the government should start vaccinating the next priority sector, A4, which is comprised of frontline workers in essential sectors.
But Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje, who chairs the national vaccination operations center, said the AstraZeneca shots cannot be given to those who are not included in the priority list of the COVAX facility.
“AstraZeneca came from the COVAX facility. The priorities are A1, A2 and A3 so we cannot give them to other areas,” she said, referring to healthcare workers, senior citizens and people with comorbidities.
Cabotaje also said the government plans to increase the average number of daily vaccinations to at least 70,00.
Vaccination in the country has been slow with 514,655 people being fully inoculated since the immunization program began in March, far from the government's goal of vaccinating 70 million. Meanwhile, over 1.19 million individuals have received first doses.
The national government has so far secured two official deals for COVID-19 vaccine supplies in the Philippines, one with Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac and another with the Serum Institute of India.
Watch this space for bite-sized developments on the vaccines in the Philippines. (Main image by Markus Spiske via Unsplash)
Health Officer-in-Charge Maria Rosario Vergeire says the general population may now get their second booster jab.
"We're just waiting for the release of implementing guidelines, then we'll start rolling out our second booster for the general population," she says. — Gaea Katreena Cabico
Amid questions on vaccines being administered, the Department of Health assures the public all doses are safe and effective as the “process of extending shelf life goes through thorough stability studies.”
“The government ensures that every vaccine that is injected with an extended shelf life has gone through studies, and is still safe and effective against COVID-19,” it adds.
Government must increase vaccination capacity across the Philippines in anticipation of a surge of COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant of the corona virus, Sen. Risa Hontiveros says.
She says local government units and the private sector can work together to put up more vaccination centers and deploy more vaccination teams to get more people inoculated against COVID-19.
"The active COVID cases have nearly doubled in three days. The positivity rate is almost four times the ceiling set by the World Health Organization. Huwag na nating hintayin na sobrang lumala pa ang sitwasyon bago tayo gumawa ng paraan para mapabilis ang ating pagbabakuna."
FDA chief Eric Domingo says that its agency has given emergency approval for the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11.
The United States immunized around 900,000 children aged five-to-11 against Covid in the first week the Pfizer vaccine was authorized for them, a White House official says Wednesday.
Roughly 700,000 more have made appointments at pharmacies, White House Covid coordinator Jeff Zients tells reporters.
"The program is just getting up to full strength," he says, adding most of the shots were given in the last couple of days alone. — AFP
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