63% of Filipinos prefer American-made COVID-19 vaccines —SWS survey

Sixty-three percent of Filipinos preferred to receive vaccines manufactured in the United States to protect themselves from the coronavirus disease, results from a 2021 Social Weather Stations (SWS) poll showed Monday.

In the survey conducted from April 28 to May 2, 2021, SWS found that the US dominated the list for preferred sources of vaccines.

This was followed by Japan (19%), Australia (13%), United Kingdom (13%), Canada (12%), Russia (12%),  Germany (8%), Korea (6%), and India (3%). Two percent chose all 10 countries while 12% refused to respond.

SWS indicated that they asked 1,200 Filipino adults: “If you could choose the country of origin of the vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the Philippines, which of the following would you choose?” 

"Respondents were shown 10 origins in random order and were allowed more than one answer," the poll station added.

Meanwhile, 39% Filipinos preferred vaccines made by China's Sinovac Biotech while 33% chose jabs from American drugmaker Pfizer-BioNTech. 

This was followed by Oxford-AstraZeneca (22%), Johnson & Johnson (10%), Moderna (7%), CureVac (3%), Sinopharm (3%), Novavax (3%), Sanofi-GSK (3%), and Gamaleya (2%). SWS said two percent chose all brands and 19% did not give a response.

The said results came after SWS asked respondents: “If you could choose the brand of vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration of the Philippines, which of the following would you choose?” Respondents were provided with a list of 10 FDA-approved vaccines, presented in random order, and were allowed to choose more than one.
 
The poll was conducted during the arrival of over 7 million COVID-19 vaccines in the country. Most of these jabs are China’s Sinovac (about 5 million), British-Swedish drugmaker Oxford-AstraZeneca (about 2.5 million) and Russian Gamaleya Institute's Sputnik V (about 30,000). The initial doses of Pfizer were delivered to the Philippines on May 10.

Of the total 1,200 adults interviewed nationwide, 300 each were from Metro Manila, Balance Luzon (the rest of Luzon), the Visayas, and Mindanao.

The survey has sampling error margins of ±3% for national percentages and ±6% for Balance Luzon, Metro Manila, the Visayas, and Mindanao.

"The area estimates were weighted by the Philippine Statistics Authority medium-population projections for 2021 to obtain the national estimates," SWS said in its report.

"The survey items reported here were non-commissioned. They were included on SWS's initiative and released as a public service," poll-making body added.

President Rodrigo Duterte earlier told the public to "have yourselves vaccinated by any of the vaccines available. They are all potent."

“They are all effective. So wala...there's no reason for you really to be choosy about it," he added.

The Department of Health then implemented an agnostic rule policy which bans local governments from announcing brands of vaccines. It, however, clarified that the recipient will be informed of the brand right before the inoculation. 

The policy was enforced after inoculation sites in Parañaque City and Manila had long queues of people wanting to secure Pfizer shots. —KG, GMA News