Maximize the COVID-19 vaccines you have, WHO official urges the Philippines

The World Health Organization's representative to the Philippines on Wednesday urged the country to maximize the use of the COVID-19 vaccines it has, saying that they help protect against severe disease and death even if they are less able to stop the transmission of the Omicron variant.

"The fact of the matter is that none of the vaccines currently available can protect COVID-19 infection happening. [The present vaccines] can only protect people from developing severe disease and death," Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinghe, WHO Country Representative to the Philippines, said during the Laging Handa briefing.

WHO experts had earlier assessed that simply providing fresh jabs of existing vaccines as new variants emerge was not the best way to fight the pandemic. They then called for new jabs that better protect against transmission.

However, Abeyasinghe said, until vaccines better at lowering transmission risk are developed, the public should make the best use of the shots currently at its disposal.

"Until we have [vaccines that are better at stopping transmission], we have to depend on these vaccines to protect people from severe disease and death. And that will allow us to continue with economic activity and economic rebound, and manage our daily lives," he said.

"Until they have such vaccines that can protect people from acquiring infection, this is what we have at the moment and we have to maximize the use of them."

Abeyasinghe added that WHO and its global vaccine-sharing facility COVAX were able to provide the Philippines with more vaccines than initially allocated.

"Given the abundance of vaccines in the Philippines, I am happy to note that WHO and COVAX committed to provide 44 million doses to the Philippines in 2021. We actually provided more than 62 million doses...we actually provided enough vaccines to protect 37 million Filipinos last year. So our plea to you is make use of those vaccines," he said.

He urged the national and local governments to ensure that everybody has access to the vaccines.

"We have always reiterated that primary vaccinations for everybody at risk is more important than providing boosters to people who have already completed the primary course of vaccinations, and we continue to emphasize that because we continue to see that there are a large number of people in the Philippines who have still not been able to access their primary vaccines for whatever reason," Aberaysinghe said.

There are only 52.8 million Filipinos fully vaccinated against COVID-19 so far, which is short of the government target of fully vaccinating 54 million Pinoys by the end of 2021.

Of the 52.8 million, 3.5 million already got their booster shots in addition to the primary dose.

The Palace said Tuesday that around 28 million Filipinos are still unvaccinated against COVID-19, including three million senior citizens or those aged 60 and above. — BM, GMA News