‘207M vaccine doses worth P10.3B wasted’

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SOME 207 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been wasted as of first week of August this year, Sen. Risa Hontiveros said yesterday as she asked the health department to be transparent in its plans to speed up vaccination efforts amid the wastage.

Hontiveros made the disclosure as the Senate committee on health held its organizational meeting for the 19th Congress, during which officials of the Department of Health (DOH) briefed the senators on the overall health situation in the country.

Hontiveros said the 20.7 million doses amount to some P10.33 billion, at P500 per vaccine.

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She added vaccine wastage was from 4.7 percent from June to 8.42 percent as of August.

With the rate of vaccine wastage, the country might exceed the threshold of the World Health Organization (WHO) in the months ahead, she said.

The country’s vaccine wastage is less than the 10 percent standard of the World Health Organization, said Health Undersecretary and DOH officer-in-charge Ma. Rosario Vergeire, who added that wastage is normal in any vaccination program.

Hontiveros said at the current wastage rate, the country might exceed the WHO threshold by October.

“We might have accumulated vaccines faster than we could administer them. It seems we wasted billions,” she is in mixed Filipino and English.

She added: “Our vaccine program is leaking billions of pesos, both of which we sorely need for reopening our economy. Figuring out what is driving the vaccine wastage should be top priority.”

At this time, she said the country may be still within the WHO threshold but the fact is that the government has wasted billions of pesos.

WASTAGE

Hontiveros said the DOH should come up with clear plans of speeding up its vaccination program so that the vaccines will not go to waste.

As of end of May, she said, the DOH has a target of vaccinating 90 million Filipinos but only 72 million have been fully vaccinated as of August.

At the meeting, Health Undersecretary Carolina Vida-Taino of the DOH Management Services Team said around 20.7 million doses have been wasted to date, or equivalent to 8.42 percent.

Taino said the wastage was due to a number of reasons, including “unopened vial wastage,” or the vaccines were delivered but not used, has reached expiration date, temperature excursion (thawed but not used), destroyed by calamities like typhoons and fire, and presence of particulate matters/broken vials, among others.

The other reason is “open vial wastage,” or the vials have been opened but the recipients did not show up, Taino added.

The DOH said the country has fully vaccinated more than 90 percent of the target population, but booster doses remain low at 21 percent.

It said the reasons for the low booster rate are that nine out of 10 of Filipinos were overconfident on primary series protection, have experienced side effects from the primary series of vaccination, concerned on the “cost” of side effects, or have felt that booster shots are not necessary since it is not a requirement for work or school.

To date, some 76.8 million individuals, or 98.33 percent of the target population, have received their first vaccine dose; about 72 million have been fully jabbed (92.31 percent of target); and almost 17 million have received booster shots (21.76 percent of target).

To offset wastage, the DOH said it is facilitating the replacement of expired/expiring vaccines through the COVAX Facility, intensifying a campaign to allay fears about side effects of the vaccines, clarifying concerns on the safety of vaccines with extended shelf life, and ensuring that healthcare workers are able to properly explain this to clients.

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