THE Department of Health (DOH) yesterday said oversupply, coupled with low demand, caused the expiration of over seven million vials of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines.
The Commission on Audit (COA) has flagged the DOH for expired medical supplies worth P11,186,368,902.47, including 7,035,161 vials of COVID-19 vaccines, stockpiled in the agency’s warehouse and public health facilities.
In a statement, the DOH said the sudden global emergence of the COVID-19 prompted multiple efforts to acquire the vaccines, which resulted to an abundance of supply.
“Even as the national government advised all concerned that it would be procuring for all Filipinos, some local government units and private sector entities insisted on procuring their own vaccines. As more and more doses arrived from the triple procurement efforts, there were even donations that came from the COVAX facility and from bilateral channels,” it said.
It added that such efforts were understandable at the time considering how the COVID-19 pandemic was viewed as an “emergency” and a “matter of life and death” situation.
“Similar to many governments worldwide, the Philippine government, through the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID), decided to have more COVID-19 vaccines available for all Filipinos at the soonest possible time, than none at all,” it said.
But as the threat of COVID-19 waned, the health department said the demand for the vaccines sharply declined.
“The public started seeing COVID-19 as similar to seasonal influenza, so more vaccinated people decided not to receive a booster shot,” it said.
Add to this, the DOH said is the high number of individuals developing natural immunity after getting afflicted of the virus during the pandemic.
“The mild but highly transmissible Omicron variant strengthened herd immunity through natural infection, so less people experienced critical symptoms,” it said.
The DOH said that having expired COVID-19 vaccines is not unique to the Philippines as it has been observed in other countries as early as April 2022.
“In April 2022, the international scientific community already pointed to COVID-19 vaccine wastage rates of up to 30 percent,” it said.
“Researchers pointed out an imbalance between supply and demand for these vaccines that were much needed in a time of global emergency,” it also said.
The health department assured COA that it has adopted measures to avoid similar wastage in the future.
“The DOH – Health Emergency Management Bureau (HEMB) now has guidelines on the management of logistics for use during emergencies/disasters, particularly for the proper storage conditions on health commodities considering their shelf life, to avoid wastage,” it said.
