DOH: COVID-19 vaccination of indigent sector allowed if there's sufficient supply
MANILA, Philippines — Local government units can start administering donated COVID-19 vaccines from the COVAX facility to indigent Filipinos if they have enough supply, the Department of Health said Monday.
“This is allowed, but it will depend on the supplies. If local governments see they are capable of doing it based on their allocations, they can do it. The guidelines are there, the pronouncement is there. They won’t be violating anything,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a mix of English and Filipino during a briefing.
But LGUs need to manage the allocation of their vaccine supplies “so we don’t end up having inadequate supplies for other sectors of the population,” Vergeire added.
Indigent Filipinos belong to the fifth priority group for vaccination, who are next in line after healthcare workers, senior citizens, persons with comorbidities and economic frontliners.
According to the guidelines of the DOH, local governments should coordinate with the Department of Social Welfare and Development for the list of indigent Filipinos based on the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction.
LGUs can also identify other indigent residents though other verification mechanisms.
Priority may be given to poor people aged 40 to 59, followed by those aged 18 to 39, in situations where the vaccine supply is limited.
The COVAX vaccine-sharing facility has shipped over 5 million doses of AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines to the Philippines. COVAX seeks to boost COVID-19 inoculation programs in lower-income countries.
Last month, President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the distribution of Pfizer jabs to the indigent population.
Since the government began its vaccination drive on March 1, only 1.55% of the country’s roughly 110 million population have completed vaccination against COVID-19, while 4.26% have received the first of two doses of the vaccine.
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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