Marcos: No need to rush bivalent COVID-19 vaccine procurement

MANILA, Philippines — There is no need to rush procurement of bivalent COVID-19 vaccines as the number of infections in the country continues to drop, President Marcos said yesterday.

Marcos noted that the COVAX Facility, the vaccine-sharing platform co-led by the World Health Organization (WHO), has shipped to the country almost 1.3 million doses of pandemic jabs.

“That will be sufficient for now... The number of our cases is going down, hospitalization is going down. We are monitoring that,” the President said in a video released by the Presidential Communications Office.

“There is no need for us to rush just like in 2021 because the risk is decreasing so we also have to adjust to the scientific assessment of the COVID situation,” he added.

Late last month, the Department of Health (DOH) said it had requested a special authorization from Marcos for the purchase of bivalent vaccines, which provides protection against Omicron and the original variants of COVID-19.

About one million doses of the bivalent jabs from COVAX are expected to arrive in the Philippines by the end of March.

Marcos also assured health workers that they would continue to receive COVID-19 allowances despite the lapsing of the state of calamity declaration.

As of Jan. 29, the DOH recorded 9,982 active COVID-19 infections in the country.

From Jan. 23 to 29, the agency recorded 1,206 new cases, with 172 average daily cases for the period, 35 percent lower than the cases from Jan. 16 to 22.

About 73 million individuals have been vaccinated against COVID-19, equivalent to 94.54 percent of the target population, while 21 million individuals have availed themselves of booster shots.

Few students getting sick

Meanwhile, the Department of Health said only a few students nationwide are getting COVID-19 and other diseases.

“We have not been receiving too many reports coming from the schools of illnesses of students,” DOH officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said at a forum on Tuesday.

But Vergeire said latest data on the actual number of students who suffered from illnesses is with the Department of Education (DepEd).

At this time, Vergeire said the DOH is yet to receive from DepEd the number of students vaccinated against COVID-19.

Based on DOH data, she said 49.9 percent of children aged five to 11 years are now fully vaccinated and 112.5 percent of those belonging to the 12 to 17-year age group. –  Mayen Jaymalin