Philippines asks COVAX for 10.5 million COVID-19 vaccine replacement doses

The Department of Health has asked the COVAX facility for at least 10.5 million vaccine doses to replace the jabs that have expired in the Philippines.

At a press briefing, officer in charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said the DOH would not ask for the replacement of all the doses that have expired but only for jabs that the country needed.

"Ang atin pong hiningi palang sa COVAX to replace would be 10.5 million doses. These will be delivered kasama sa ating request 'yan by month," Vergeire said.

Vergeire said the deliveries would start in December and continue in January and February.

She said the deliveries would meet the needs of the country for those months.

Vergeire said she still could not say if there would be more requests after the initial replacements arrived.

Vergeire earlier said that the COVAX facility has committed to replace all expired and expiring COVID-19 vaccine doses in the country, including those procured by the private sector and the local government units.

Go Negosyo founder and former Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion said that at least 3.6 million doses of Moderna vaccines had expired on July 27.

He said 623,000 AstraZeneca doses were set to expire on Sunday, July 31.

This accounts for a total of 4.2 million vaccines, which he said were worth around P5.1 billion.

Vergeire said that there was a need to increase the number of vaccinations among the eligible population so that these vaccines will be used.

She said there was no need to procure COVID-19 vaccines in the meantime as there were sufficient stocks until the end of the year.

“Kailangan yung imbentaryo natin nakikita natin what would be those expiring or near expiring at magamit agad agad ito pong mga bakuna para hindi nasisira,” the DOH OIC said.

(We need to see our inventory, we can see what would be expiring or near expiring and these vaccines can be used immediately so that they won’t be put into waste.)

“We have already started kahit last year pa po itong pagrere-allocate po ng bakuna dahil nga po pagnamomonitor natin na near expiring pinapadala po natin sa mga areas na mataas yung utilization at mabilis makapagmobilize ng ating pagpapabakuna,” she added.

(We have already started even last year to re-allocate the vaccine because we are monitoring those near expiring, we are sending them to areas with high utilization and so that we can quickly mobilize our vaccination.)

During the Senate committee on health and demography hearing on Monday, Vergeire said the country had reported at least 8.42% vaccine wastage as of August 12.

This 8.42% vaccine wastage is lower than the 10% indicative wastage rate used by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Vergeire said the most common reasons for the wastage were expiration, operations-related issues including vaccines that were opened but were not injected, spillage, broken vials, backflow, leftover underdose, among others.

Senator Risa Hontiveros earlier filed a resolution seeking a Senate investigation into the estimated P5 to P13 billion unused and expired vaccines. —NB, GMA News