THE World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday said it is not endorsing any brand of vaccine against for COVID-19 and stressed that all those included in its emergency use listing are effective and safe.
WHO Representative to the Philippines Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinghe made the statement following results of a survey that showed about 63 percent of Filipinos prefer vaccines made firms based in the United States.
“What is important is preventing severe disease and death. All of the vaccines that WHO has listed under EUL (emergency use listing) are capable of doing it. So we are not advocating for preference of one or the other brands,” Abeyasinghe said during a briefing in Malacañang.
Last week, residents of some cities in Metro Manila flocked to vaccination sites which announced the availability of US-made Pfizer vaccines, even those who have not registered.
This prompted President Duterte to order local government units to stop prior announcements of what vaccine brands will be made available in their vaccination facilities, and for the Department of Health to use on indigents vaccines obtained through the COVAX Facility.
The global vaccine-sharing COVAX Facility is run by WHO and the GAVI vaccine alliance. It has delivered 72 million vaccine doses to 125 countries and economies since February.
From COVAX, the Philippines has so far received 193,000 doses of Pfizer vaccines and 2.556 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines. The country is expecting 40 million to 44 million doses of vaccines from COVAX.
Abeyasinghe said the priority of COVAX is to provide vaccines for 20 percent of the population of poor to middle class countries.
He also said COVAX is giving out the vaccines based on supply availability and ability of a country to store and roll out the vaccines, as some require ultra-low temperature storage areas.
He reiterated that vaccines donated through COVAX should be given to priority sectors such as healthcare workers and other medical frontliners, and the elders, because they are the most vulnerable especially to severe to critical COVID stages. Protecting these sectors would prevent overwhelming the healthcare or hospital capacity.
Abeyasinghe emphasized the importance of complying with the COVAX requirement on who should receive the vaccines to prevent losing the confidence of the donors and eventually lose the chance of receiving further vaccine donations.
In the Philippines, the vaccines obtained though COVAX are being given to the healthcare workers (A1 priority group), senior citizens (A2), with comorbidities (A3) and by June to the indigent sector (A5).
The Philippines intends to vaccinate 16.4 million individuals belonging to the A1 to A3 category and more than 16 million belonging to the A4 sector.
As of May 23, at least 4.1 million vaccines doses have been administered nationwide, including 3.1 million first doses. Data also shows the current daily average of vaccines administered is now at 162,514 doses.
Abeyasinghe said he does not see any vaccine hesitancy in the Philippines, believing it is the availability of supply that is affecting the vaccination program.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NITAG) is pushing for the use of church buildings as vaccination sites “because churches are well ventilated usually, especially the bigger ones.”
The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines offered its churches as jab sites as early as January.
Vergeire said the NITAG is also looking at private hospitals, malls, and even parking areas.
“We talked to the private sector and all of them are very much willing to help us,” she said.
Vergeire also said vaccines cannot be allocated mostly in Metro Manila because other regions also need to immunize their people.
“Allocating 90 percent of supplies in the NCR Plus area, we think, wouldn’t be appropriate,” she said,
Earlier, the OCTA Research Team urged the DOH to deploy 90 percent of the vaccine supply to Metro Manila to significantly reduce the number of COVID-19 cases in the country as the NCR is considered as the epicenter of the pandemic.
Ambassador to Washington Jose Manuel Romualdez said at least 300,000 doses of Moderna vaccines from the United States will arrive in the country by the second week of June.
Romualdez said this is just an initial delivery as the country will get more by July, August and September this year.
“June 21 is the target date of delivery for the first batch of Moderna vaccines. It will be 300,000 doses as a start,” Romualdez said in an interview over CNN Philippines.
The country procured at least 20 million doses of Moderna vaccines, of which seven million were paid for the private sector.
Romualdez said the country procured from other American brands — 40 million doses from Pfizer-BioNTech and five million from Johnson & Johnson.
He said Johnson & Johnson may start delivery “around August or September.” — With Gerard Naval and Ashzel Hachero
