Barring last-minute hitches, the government’s mass inoculation for the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) gets going on Monday.
The rollout hinges on the arrival of vaccine doses from Sinovac Biotech on Sunday.
In a press briefing on Thursday, Palace spokesman Harry Roque Jr. confirmed the arrival of Sinovac’s CoronaVac on Sunday.
Government officials, including President Rodrigo Duterte, will personally welcome the arrival of the vaccine shipment, said Roque.
Medical frontliners will get priority for the vaccine, he said.
Roque earlier said economic frontliners and soldiers were likely to be inoculated first, after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that the vaccine might not be the best for medical frontliners.
On Thursday, however, he said medical workers from the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) would receive the first doses.
Of the 600,000 CoronaVac doses, 500,000 will be reserved for 250,000 medical frontliners. Each will receive two doses.
Roque clarified that medical frontliners will not be forced to get inoculated, and they can choose the vaccine they prefer.
The remaining 100,000 doses will go to 50,000 soldiers.
PGH Director Gerardo Legaspi said the hospital’s frontliners were willing to accept any brand of vaccine.
“We all know that if the FDA gives any vaccine the EUA (Emergency Use Authorization), the safety and efficacy are assured,” Legaspi said.
The FDA said the CoronaVac is not advisable for use on medical workers after health experts reported that the vaccine has 50.4-percent efficacy rate when used on health care workers in a clinical trial in Brazil.
Legaspi said the vaccine, just like Pfizer’s and AstraZeneca’s, will provide 100-percent protection from developing severe Covid-19 infection.
He said 94 percent of the medical workers in the PGH gave their consent for vaccination.
He, however, stressed that when the consent was taken, what the medical frontliners preferred was the Pfizer vaccine.
In the initial PGH survey, Legaspi said, 75 percent were willing to get a vaccine, regardless of brand.
The Department of Health (DoH) said it would wait for the official recommendation of the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (Nitag) on the allocation and the rollout of the CoronaVac vaccine.
The DoH and the National Task Force Against Covid-19 said Nitag was still evaluating the distribution of the vaccine.
The development comes after the Healthcare Professionals Alliance against Covid-19 (Hpaac) urged the government to wait for the recommendation of the Health Technology Assessment Council (HTAC) before making any prioritization or rollout.
Hpaac said the independent HTAC, mandated under the Universal Health Care Act of 2019, would appraise “foreign donated technology during pandemics and emergencies in order to determine their clinical and economic value,” which includes vaccines under EUA.
While the group welcomes the vaccine donation from the Chinese Embassy, it said the government would be wise to wait for the HTAC’s recommendation so that the vaccines will not be influenced by “political and financial interests.”
Philippine Society of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology President and DoH’s National Adverse Events Following Immunization Committee member Dr. Rommel Crisenio Lobo said he was willing to be vaccinated with the CoronaVac.
“Ang bakuna po, makakatulong po sa atin, makakaprotekta po sa atin [sa virus]…. Sabi po nila 50.4-percent protection; 50.4 percent protection is better than zero. At doon sa sub-analysis sa Sinovac, may 70-plus percent protection for moderate and severe Covid (The vaccine will help protect us from the virus. According to studies, Sinovac has a 50.4-percent protection, and 50.4 percent protection is better than zero. And based on the sub-analysis of the vaccine, there is 70-plus percent protection for moderate and severe Covid),” Lobo said in a briefing on Thursday.
On Thursday, the country added 2,269 new Covid-19 cases, for a total caseload of 568,680.
Recoveries are at 524,042, and deaths at 12,201.
Sen. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go assured that the government was speeding up the acquisition of vaccines.
Go made the assurance during his visit to Parola, Tondo, Manila, where he led the distribution of assistance to 361 victims of a fire.
“Almost everyday, President Duterte and I talked about this. We keep on reminding our officials, our vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., Health Secretary Francisco Duque 3rd and other officials to hasten the process,” he said in Filipino.
Go said the Philippines is having problems acquiring vaccines, given the limited global supply and with some developed countries cornering the doses produced so far.
The Senate on Tuesday passed on final reading Senate Bill 2057, which includes the provision for the indemnification fund, among others.
The House of Representatives adopted the Senate version of the measure and passed the bill on the same day.
A survey by Octa Research found that only 2 out of 10 Filipinos are willing to be vaccinated for Covid-19 despite its safety and efficacy.
In its nationwide Tugon ng Masa (Answer of the Masses) poll, nearly half of those surveyed said they would not have themselves vaccinated even if a vaccine becomes available.
Only a quarter of respondents in the National Capital Region (NCR) and Mindanao are willing to get vaccinated, while Balance Luzon has the lowest intent to be vaccinated at 14 percent.
Balance Luzon and the Visayas have the highest percentage of respondents not willing to get vaccinated at 47 percent, followed by NCR and Mindanao at 43 percent each.
Octa Research fellow Dr. Guido David said the numbers reflected the “low confidence” among respondents in the country’s vaccination drive.
David’s Octa colleague, Prof. Ranjit Rye, looked at the results as a wake-up call for the government to ramp up a massive information campaign for Covid-19 vaccination, especially in terms of explaining its safety and efficacy.
With vaccine shipments expected to arrive, San Miguel Corp. (SMC) will spend close to a billion pesos to vaccinate all its 70,000 employees and extended workforce for free.
The company has secured vaccine doses from various sources and is laying the groundwork for its Covid-19 vaccination strategy.
“Our program is in line with our core value of malasakit and aims to create a safe and healthy workplace so that we can further contribute to our country’s economic recovery,” SMC President Ramon Ang, said.
The vaccines will be administered to employees on a voluntary basis, but Ang hopes that all eligible employees will sign up when the vaccine becomes available.
WITH RED MENDOZA AND JAVIER JOE ISMAEL
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