Navotas mayor: Making vaccine brand unknown to recipient may create mistrust

Navotas Mayor Toby Tiangco. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — The new policy of “brand agnosticism” in COVID-19 vaccinations, or making the vaccine brand unknown to the recipient until the moment of vaccination, will “create mistrust” to the public, Navotas Mayor Toby Tiangco said on Thursday.

The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) ordered local governments not to disclose the brand beforehand following the Department of Health’s suggestion.

In response, Tiangco pointed out that vaccination should be “purely voluntary” and that every person has “the right to know” which brand of vaccine will be administered to them.

“Vaccination is purely voluntary and cannot be forced upon a person,” Tiangco said in a statement shared to reporters. “It is the right of the person to know what vaccine will be administered to him.”

“Pushing for ‘brand agnostic’ vaccination will just create mistrust,” he pointed out.

He also said that the brand could not be kept secret: “Vaccines have to be prepared; we cannot ensure that information on this will not get leaked.”

Instead of “brand agnosticism,” Tiangco believes the solution is an effective management of vaccine sites, while also noting that both rollout of AstraZeneca and Pfizer in Navotas had “a high turnout.”

“If vaccine rollout has not been problematic in our city, then there is nothing to solve here,” he said. “Implementing the “brand agnostic” vaccination might just create a bigger problem than the problem we supposedly want to solve,” he said.

JPV