PhilHealth to discuss compensation for vaccine recipients who suffer serious side effects —Gierran

Officials of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) will meet on Thursday to discuss the possible compensation package for COVID-19 vaccine recipients who will suffer serious side effects, the agency’s president Dante Gierran said Monday.

At the Laging Handa briefing, Gierran assured the public that PhilHealth has funds to cover the treatment of vaccine-related injuries.

“This coming Thursday, idi-discuss iyan sa [PhilHealth] Board,” he said. “Mayroon tayong pera, mayroon tayong reserve fund for that.”

Vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. has been calling on Congress to pass an indemnification law, which he said was required by COVAX, the globally-pooled vaccine procurement and distribution effort co-led by the World Health Organization (WHO), the GAVI Alliance, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.

He said Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine could have been delivered to the country as early as last Friday if the Philippines had its own indemnification law.

Last month, two bills seeking to establish an indemnity fund for vaccine-related injuries in the country were filed in the Senate.

The bills propose that the indemnity fund be subsidized by pharmaceutical companies supplying the government with vaccines for public immunization programs, by reserving 1% of the contract price to be deposited with the national treasury.

The bills also call for the creation of a Vaccines Compensation Board to manage the indemnification fund.

The Philippines aims to begin its mass immunization program later this month.—AOL, GMA News