Leachon to gov’t: Don’t be complacent about vaccination numbers; more urgency needed

Health expert Dr. Anthony "Tony" Leachon on Thursday urged the government not to be complacent about already having vaccinated more than one million people, saying that the inoculations must be sped up as more COVID-19 vaccine doses arrive in the next few months.

Leachon, former adviser to the National Task Force Against COVID-19, was reacting to NTF chief and vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr.'s presentation, which claimed that the Philippines ranked fourth in vaccines administered among ASEAN countries.

"If Sec Galvez is saying we will vaccinate 70 [million] Pinoys this year, that means we need to administer 140M doses. As of today only 1.2M have been given so we are at less than 1% of our target, with 8.5 months to go," Leachon told GMA News Online in a text message.

"That we should highlight, not the 1M doses so the government will not be complacent and happy with the big numbers. There should be some urgency given to this matter. We have enough vaccines on stock now and more coming each week," he added.

He added that the presentation should focus on the percentage of vaccinated population in the country, not the administered shots, pointing out that some countries have smaller populations.

In ASEAN, only Indonesia has a larger population than the Philippines.

"Medyo hindi tama yung presentation [The presentation isn't right]. It should not be based on administered dose but based on percentage of vaccinated population," said Leachon.

"Lalabas siyempre number four tayo pero below the Philippines in chart, kakaunti naman ang population ng ibang countries doon," he added.

[Of course it would show that we are number four; the other countries below the Philippines in the chart have smaller populations.]

Leachon added that Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said that the presentation will be changed to show the vaccinations as a percentage of the population instead.

"Importante is the percentage of vaccinated of the people and also the rapidity of vaccination," he said.

'Sobrang bagal'

Leachon said the government must also focus on administering the vaccines, not just scrambling to get enough supplies.

"Sobrang bagal ng vaccinations. Naiwan na tayo sa vaccination, same problem with testing and tracing [The vaccinations are going so slowly. We are lagging behind in vaccination as well as testing and tracing]," Leachon said.

"In the next few months the problem is not the supply but the administration of the vaccines, this is more difficult than securing the stocks. The gov't is too focused on getting the supplies but administering it is going to be a major challenge unless we change our approach. We need to increase by tenfold the speed of our vaccination and tap the private sector to help," he also pointed out.

He also warned that vaccine stocks could expire if the vaccination rollout continues to be this slow.

"The problem is only about half of the ones distributed have been administered. That is where the bottleneck is and someone should be in charge of this and not just leave it to the LGU (local government unit). We need to do things 10 [times] faster or the vaccines will just expire or it will take us years to achieve our goals," he said.

Galvez earlier said that the pace of vaccinations would pick up once more vaccines arrive.

According to Galvez's presentation this Thursday, 1,612,420 shots have been administered since the government launched its mass inoculation program on March 1.

The government has so far vaccinated health workers, senior citizens, and persons with comorbidities using Sinovac and AstraZeneca vaccines.

Galvez also earlier said the government is expecting the initial shipments of the Sputnik V and Pfizer vaccines this month. — BM, GMA News