MANILA, Philippines — A health official on Wednesday attributed false information about COVID-19 vaccines as among reasons why the elderly are hesitant to get the jabs, with only a small number of the priority group fully inoculated.
Senior citizens are second in line to be vaccinated under the government's list as they are more vulnerable to contracting the novel coronavirus disease.
But four months since efforts began, only 8.90% or 736,519 have completed their second dose, per data presented by Dr. Nina Castillo-Carandang.
That figure is out of the 8,276,948 senior citizens in total that the country is targeting to vaccinate. Some 29.32%, or 2,426,949 have received their first shot.
Carandang said a health department survey showed those hesitant had a lack of trust in clinical trials, their concerns on possible side effects were not discussed, and on fake news about the jabs.
"Explanations and discussions are still lacking," she said in Filipino. "There are also a lot of erroneous information circulating."
Vaccine hesitancy is among the challenges the Philippines has had to face in its rollout, with several surveys in past months showing many were still unwilling to be jabbed.
The DOH survey had around 2,000 respondents, with 1,014 of of them unvaccinated. Some 88% said they would be inoculated, 10% were unsure, and 2% said they would not.
"Misinformation and gossip is spreading faster than accurate and scientific information about the vaccines," said Carandang, a member of the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group.
Broken down per areas, Metro Manila had the most number of fully vaccinated senior citizens at 306,506, with 643,061 with their first dose.
Davao Region, meanwhile, stood with the lowest with complete shots at 13,537, while 139,442 have received their initial dose.
Nationwide, only 2.60% of Filipinos are fully inoculated as of July 5, or 2.86 million. That remains a fraction of the government's goal this year to vaccinate up to 70 million of its citizens. — Christian Deiparine