AMID concerns on coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccine wastage, authorities said they are continuously coordinating with manufacturers to extend the shelf life of vaccine doses.
In a joint statement, the National Task Force (NTF) Against Covid-19 and the Department of Health (DOH) said the National Government will continue to intensify or innovate measures to increase the vaccine uptake, both the primary doses and booster shots.
“Our health workers and volunteers are now going house-to-house and stall-to-stall. Vaccines are also being made more accessible and available through sites deployed in pharmacies (Resbakuna sa Botika), clinics (Resbakuna sa Klinika), workplaces (Jabs in Job Sites), and places of worship. We are also giving jabs at water, air, and land transportation terminals, and even schools,” the statement read.
“We ask all of our kababayans to please get vaccinated and also, for those not yet up to date, to get boosted. Let us not wait for any possible new variants before we take action to protect ourselves and our families,” it added.
On Sunday, April 3, Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion said about 27 million Covid-19 vaccine doses are set to expire in July.
These vaccines were either donated or procured by the national or local government and private sector.
The NTF and DOH said only two percent of the country’s Covid-19 vaccines have been wasted due to supply chain inefficiencies and errors in dose administration.
It noted, however, that it is still lower than the 10 percent indicative wastage rate used by the World Health Organization in planning and forecasting of vaccine supply needs.
“The DOH and NTF wish to address concerns regarding the current government inventory of Covid-19 vaccine doses. We made sure from the very start to ensure that there will be enough vaccines available on hand... No one could guarantee for certain that manufacturers could deliver at the scale and schedule our people required; hence, decisions were made to secure as many doses as could be obtained from wherever they could be sourced,” the agencies said in the statement.
“Not one country could have predicted and balanced, with reasonable certainty, the global supply and demand of vaccines amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, the DOH, NTF, NVOC, LGUs, and private sector partners are taking steps to coordinate with all concerned to carefully use vaccines in our care,” the statement added.
As of April 2, the Philippines has so far received a total of 244,657,960 Covid-19 vaccine doses.
Of the total, over 145 million have been administered all over the country.
Over 66 million individuals have been fully vaccinated, while more than 12 million have received booster doses out of the over 46.8 million eligible for it.
In a virtual press conference, DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said they are already finalizing the country’s vaccine inventory, as well as the arrangement for the donation of the vaccines that are near expiry to avoid wastage.
She said among the countries that will receive vaccine donations from the Philippines are Myanmar and Papua New Guinea.
Vergeire said they are also looking at the hiring and deployment of social mobilizers to further push the vaccination rate in the country.
“Alam natin na we somehow have exhausted especially in areas like NCR (National Capital Region) ang mga binabakunahan kaya kailangan nating suyurin sa ngayon ang mga bahay bahay o di kaya mga communities na hanggang sa ngayon meron pa rin hesitancy sa pagbabakuna,” she said.
(We know that we have somehow exhausted, especially in areas like NCR, so we need to do house-to-house and go to communities whose people are still hesitant to getting vaccinated.)
“This is where social mobilizers will come in. They will try to map out the different communities, tignan kung ano po ang mga nakikitang balakid kung bakit hindi po tayo makapagbakuna ng 100 percent kung pwede sa ating mga komunidad (find out what are the hindrances as to why we cannot vaccinated 100 percent in our communities). Social mobilizers will bring this so that they can mobilize the community and organize the community and therefore, we will be able to better improve our vaccination efforts on the ground,” she added. (SunStar Philippines)