FROM the sorry situation of having no vaccines to roll out the national vaccination program against COVID-19 some two years ago, the Philippines now has 80 million doses of various expensive vaccines lying idle in its warehouses. Twenty-seven thousand of these jabs are set to expire in July, health authorities said.
Although we may say that the government has reached a sizable number of Filipinos willing to get the jabs, the challenge now is to consume these stocks of vaccines and push the booster immunization initiative to gain more foothold in the fight against the pandemic. The DOH said those who received two doses of COVID-19 vaccines still need to get a third or booster dose to secure an additional blanket of protection against the virus.
‘They fail to realize that the efficacy of the first two doses of the vaccines they received wanes after five to six months, thus the need for the booster shot.’
Secretary Carlito Galvez who leads the government’s vaccination program said that fully vaccinated individuals have reached 66,652,616 or 74.05 percent of the population, while around 12,477,480 Filipinos or 13.86 percent have already received booster shots.
Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship and Go Negosyo founder Joey Concepcion has encouraged citizens to get their needed booster shots to increase these numbers and further strengthen the country’s defense against the pandemic.
The Department of Health (DOH) said that 80 million doses of various brands of COVID-19 vaccines with an estimated worth of P40 billion are currently stored in the Department of Health’s third party logistics warehouses, regional warehouses and Zuellig warehouse.
Filipinos are prone to be complacent as they see around them that less and less patients are being tallied as having the disease every day. They fail to realize that the efficacy of the first two doses of the vaccines they received wanes after five to six months, thus the need for the booster shot.
Booster shots would also help spare the Philippines from surges that are happening in other countries such as China due to the emergence of COVID-19 variants. The government’s official effort in this regard should be met with the public’s full cooperation for the future of our nation.
