House leader: National gov't should be lone buyer of second-generation COVID-19 vaccines

The national government alone should procure second-generation COVID-19 vaccines to prevent wastage, a House leader said Tuesday.

House Deputy Majority Leader Lorenz Defensor expressed his view after the Health Department announced that 20 million COVID-19 vaccines, worth around P13 billion, had expired.

"It is about time that only the national government will be allowed to procure the new generation of COVID-19 vaccines. We should not put the responsibility on the local government units and the private sector so vaccines won't be wasted," Defensor said during an Ugnayan sa Batasan forum.

"We still have a lot of stock of vaccines purchased. We don't want to add to this so the national government must manage the procurement," he added.

The second generation COVID-19 vaccines target both old and Omicron variants and subvariants.

The Health Department reported that 20 million COVID-19 vaccine doses expired due to late deliveries of private sector and local government unit vaccine orders. In the absence of these deliveries, the public availed of the donated COVID-19 vaccines from the global aid unit COVAX which had arrived earlier.

"We have to go back to the first problem of coordinating COVID-19 vaccine procurement. The LGUs and the private sector were not able to anticipate that the supply will be doubled. So we have to coordinate [efforts in terms of] the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines so the supply will meet the demand," said Defensor.

"The national government should strictly ensure that we will not be wasting funds in procuring new COVID-19 vaccines," he added.

Around 72.7 million Filipinos had been vaccinated with COVID-19 vaccine primary doses. However, only 18.5 million received a booster shot.

Given the low number of booster shots, Defensor said local government units should offer incentives for getting a booster jab.

"I absolutely agree that people should be given incentives [in getting a booster shot]," Defensor said when asked about the previous policy of LGUs and the private sector of granting perks to those who complete their primary doses.

"The LGUs should continue to do that (offer incentives). It could be giving rice or cash incentives. It is one way to reach out, and it would also be of aid to the poorer sectors who would go to vaccination sites. Mamamasahe rin sila kaya dapat may dala sila pauwi," he said.

"This will also reduce the chance of spreading the virus in their community," he added.