DOH says vaccine confidence is up

The Department of Health says Filipinos now more confident about vaccines.

MANILA, Philippines — The confidence of Filipinos in the safety of vaccines is improving, the Department of Health (DOH) said Friday.

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in an online press briefing that the DOH had conducted a survey from March 19 to 30 wherein 75 percent of respondents said they were willing to get vaccinated against COVID-19 the vaccines are available for them.

Meanwhile, 85 percent of the respondents said they are willing to be vaccinated as long as they are sure that the vaccines are safe and effective.

According to Vergeire, the increase in confidence in vaccines was not because of the arrivals of products from other brands since the survey was conducted as early as March.

“So even without the Pfizer vaccines, during this time, mataas na ang kumpyansa ng ating mga kababayan sa pagbabakuna, compared sa initial bago tayo mag-umpisa which was just at 60 percent,” she said.

(So even without the Pfizer vaccines, during that time, the confidence of Filipinos on vaccination is already high, compared to when we started wherein only 60 percent are willing to get vaccinated.)

“Nakita natin ang pagtaas talaga ng kumpyansa ng ating mga kababayan noong nakita nila na marami nang nababakunahan lalong lalo na at nakita nilang maayos naman ang proseso ng gobyerno,” Vergeire added.

(We saw the increase of vaccine confidence among the public when they saw that many people are already getting vaccinated and that the government’s vaccination process is good.)

The DOH has yet to provide more details, including the sample size and location concerned, of the said survey as of posting time.

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