House leader favors ‘conditional’ vaccine brand agnostic policy

CROWD DRAWER Vaccination sites offering the US-made Pfizer jabs are drawing large crowds, such as this one outside the Prince Hotel in Ermita, Manila. Authorities have warned against potential superspreader events as the government ramps up the rollout of vaccines. —MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

MANILA, Philippines — Quezon Rep. Angelina Tan, who chairs the House committee on health, backed the Department of Health’s vaccine brand agnostic policy ahead of vaccination, but said that the public must know what vaccines would be administered once they are at the inoculation sites.

Tan made the remark after the DOH pushed for a “brand agnostic” COVID-19 immunization campaign, after huge crowds turned up for limited doses of Pfizer vaccine in Metro Manila early this week.

“As a medical doctor, I fully recognize the right of every patient to appropriate medical care and humane treatment including the right to informed consent and information along with other inherent patients’ rights,” Tan, a doctor by profession, said in a statement.

“For this reason, I am supporting the Department of Health’s “brand agnostic” policy wherein the local governments will not be made to announce the brand of COVID-19 doses that they will roll out in vaccination sites to avoid overcrowding,” she added.

But Tan clarified that this should not mean that the DOH or the government will, in any manner, “force anyone to take a particular jab nor deprive them of their right to know the kind of COVID-19 vaccine that will be administered when they come to the vaccination site.”

She likewise called on the DOH and other concerned agencies of government to intensify the national initiative to increase public confidence in COVID-19 vaccines through accurate and relevant information.

Following DOH’s push, the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) said that local government units (LGUs) will no longer announce in advance the brand of vaccines to be given.

Instead, the brand of vaccines will only be disclosed to vaccinees on-site before inoculation.

According to DILG Secretary Eduardo Año, the directive was issued to make people overcome the preference for vaccine brands, adding that to achieve herd immunity, people should get vaccinated with the vaccine that is already available for use.

EDV