MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) on Saturday urged the national government to ensure equal distribution and access to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine.
“It is the responsibility of the national government to make sure that vaccines must be as accessible for Filipinos in urban cities as well as those situated in far-flung areas of the country where there is a known cluster of infected population,” CHR Commissioner Gwendolyn Pimentel-Gana said in a statement.
“There may be local government units with a host of infected residents who may not have resources to urgently procure vaccines,” she added.
Pimentel-Gana made the call as local governments in urban centers, as well as metropolitan areas, are lining up to have access to the vaccines.
Several local government units (LGUs), most of them from Metro Manila, have already secured deals with the national government and British vaccine drugmaker AstraZeneca to buy vaccines.
Sec. Carlito Galvez Jr, the chief implementor of the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, assured LGUs that could not afford to buy their own vaccines that the national government would be the one to provide.
Pimentel-Gana, meanwhile, said the government must “step in” to maintain a “balanced access” to such vaccines.
“The national government’s vaccine distribution initiative must ensure the rapid, coordinated, and equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines for all Filipinos wherever they may be residing in the country,” she said.
“An effective national vaccine rollout means a vaccine is made available to one living in urban Manila at about the same time to one recipient based in Sulu,” she added.
The commissioner then said that should the government cannot rollout yet a comprehensive vaccination for all in one go, it must “ work for its progressive realization—efficiently and effectively, in partnership with possible sectors, and to the best effort and resources it can devote—until we ensure that no one gets left behind.”