HEALTH Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje yesterday said brands of COVID-19 vaccines that will be made available at vaccination facilities sites will no longer be announced to prevent crowding in the jab sites.
The move was prompted by an incident in a vaccination center in Parañaque City on Tuesday, where hundreds trooped after the local government unit announced it will administer vaccines made by the US firm Pfizer BioNTech.
The new policy also comes after President Duterte announced that Filipinos should not get to choose which vaccine brand they would get.
“One strategy is we will no longer announce which brand of vaccine will be given. If you want to get inoculated, go to the facility and get the vaccine that is available,” Cabotaje said in a briefing.
“Everybody wanted to queue for Pfizer. I think, the general principle should be whatever vaccine is available at that time, you should get it. That will help the flow,” she also said.
Cabotaje said only healthcare workers can choose the vaccine brand.
“We only gave the right to refuse to healthcare workers at the start. Other than that, there should be no more right to refuse. Whatever brand is available, you should get it. If you don’t want it, you go down to the end of the line,” said Cabotaje.
The country has acquired COVID-19 vaccines of Pfizer-BioNTech, the British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca Plc, China’s Sinovac, and Russia’s Gamaleya.
A vaccine expert suggested a separate lane at vaccination sites for individuals with hypertension, to speed up the vaccination process.
Dr. Lulu Bravo, executive director of the Philippine Foundation for Vaccination, said vaccinators have observed that those with hypertension delay the queue because they have to be monitored.
The Department of Health has said it is doing away with the blood pressure screening before a person is inoculated, hastening the vaccination process and eventually inoculating more people.
Bravo said the National Adverse Event Following Immunization Committee (NAEFIC) submitted a list of recommendations to the DOH to help hasten the process, like advising those with hypertension to make sure that their blood pressure is normal or the first figure or systolic blood pressure is below 140, they have taken their medicine and not feeling any symptoms such as chest pain, headache or pain in the nape.
Bravo said it is important for those with hypertension and other comorbidities to be vaccinated.
As of May 18, about 3.3 million Filipinos under the vaccine priority group A1 (healthcare frontliners), A3 (senior citizens), A3 (persons with comorbidities) and A4 (frontline personnel in essential sectors) have been vaccinated, with 2.51 million receiving the first dose and 786,528 completing the two doses.
The government intends to complete the inoculation of 16.42 million individuals belonging to the A1 to A3 category by June and start the vaccination of the rest of the A4 category and A5 (indigent sector) also by next month.
Cabotaje said not all economic frontliners and indigent individuals will start getting inoculated, but only those in the “NCR Plus 8” areas — Metro Manila (National Capital Region), Bulacan, Cavite, Rizal, Laguna, Pampanga, Batangas, Cebu, and Davao.
“We will expand to A4 and A5 but we are focusing first on the NCR Plus 8 area. We will focus on this based on our geographic priorities,” said Cabotaje.
“We will concentrate in this priority geographic area, where there is a surge in cases. For A4 and A5, they will be limited to the NCR Plus 8 for now,” she added.
On Tuesday, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases has approved his recommendation to start inoculating the Priority Groups A4 and A5.
Cabotaje said the decision comes as the country is already able to acquire an adequate number of COVID-19 vaccines.
“Since volumes of vaccines already arrived, we can now do this simultaneously, but still with Priority Groups A1, A2, and A3,” she said.
With this, she said, government is hoping to achieve herd immunity in the NCR Plus 8 area before the end of the year.
“Our target for herd immunity is by November for NCR Plus 8, although we will still rely on the steady vaccine supply, as we are dependent on the global supply,” said Cabotaje.
The country has received 7.77 million doses of vaccines so far and targets to inoculate 50 million to 70 million by the end of the year.
Galvez, chief implementer of the National Task Force (NTF) against COVID-19,said the Philippines is set to receive 500,000 doses of Sinovac’s CoronaVac today.
This will be the eight delivery of vaccine from Sinovac where the Philippines bought 25 million doses.
Cabotaje said AstraZeneca vaccines set to expire in the next two months have been deployed by the Department of Health to local government units.
“Jabbing is ongoing for these AstraZeneca vaccines. Our target is to administer by June 15 those expiring on June 30, and by July 15 for those expiring on July 31,” she said.
To note, 1.5 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines are expiring on June 30, while 530,400 will expire in July 31.
As for the newly-arrived Pfizer vaccines, Cabotaje said first doses have to 30,115 individuals.
This is out of the 96,500 target vaccinees for the 193,000 doses donated by the COVAX Facility.
PNP chief Gen. Guillermo Eleazar said PNP camps are ready to be used as vaccination sites.
Eleazar said the PNP will soon submit to Galvez a list of camps that can be used as vaccination sites.
Parañaque City Mayor Edwin Olivarez, also chairman of the Metro Manila Council (MMC), said it is not time to propose a “vaccine pass” because only a small percentage of individuals have been vaccinated.
“Our vaccination program is just staring to speed up because of the arrival of the vaccines but it’s still not sufficient to vaccinate all the qualified residents of Metro Manila,” he said. — With Jocelyn Montemayor, Victor Reyes, and Noel Talacay
