Vaccination of gov’t officials not on priority list ‘won’t happen again’—Nograles

MANILA, Philippines — Vaccination of public officials who are not in the priority list “will not happen again,” Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles assured on Monday.

“Yes, but the preliminary assessment basically is just that it was just a miscom[munication] and we will make sure it will not happen again,” Nograles said in an interview over ABS-CBN News Channel when asked if the government will probe public officials who cut the line for vaccination.

Malacañang had admitted there were some “breaches” in vaccination protocols after Interior Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya and Metropolitan Manila Development Authority public services head Michael Salalima were inoculated despite not being health workers.

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said the two officials were only prodded by hospital staff to be vaccinated to boost public confidence, stressing that health workers remain to be the priority for COVID-19 jabs.

“Malinawag naman po na yung mga medical, health frontliners natin yung bibigyan talaga ng ultimate priority especially with the AstraZeneca doses natin,” Nograles said.

(It’s clear that the medical, health frontliners are the ultimate priority especially with our AstraZeneca doses.)

The 525,600 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines the Philippines so far received were from the World Health Organization-led COVAX facility.

The WHO earlier urged the Philippine government to observe the priority list of vaccine recipients to ensure the continued delivery of jabs from the global vaccine sharing pool.

JE