(FILE) HOME SERVICE Holding each other’s hands, elderly couple Felicisimo and Natividad Pineda, both 91, receive their second dose of CoronaVac, the COVID-19 vaccine produced by the Chinese company Sinovac BioTech, in their house in Sta. Mesa, Manila, on Monday. The Manila Health Department is conducting home service vaccination to seniors and bedridden residents who cannot go to designated sites. —MARIANNE BERMUDEZ
MANILA, Philippines — Half of those who have received their first COVID-19 vaccine dose may be missing out on their second dose, an epidemiologist advising the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID) said Wednesday.
Dr. John Wong, a member of the IATF’s sub-technical working group on data analytics, noted that for instance, that only about a million people who had been vaccinated with their first anti-COVID shots from Sinovac and Gamaleya Research Institute have received their second doses.
“If you look at about three months worth of data, just looking at the vaccines that have a one-month interval for vaccination—Sinovac and Gamaleya—we have vaccinated 3.1 million first doses. So we expect that [there should be] about 2.1 million who would have come back by now for their second dose, but so far only about a million have come back,” Wong said in an online town hall forum.
“So maybe, half of the people who have taken their first dose are missing out on their second dose. We need to follow up on these people,” he added.
Wong said experts do not have information yet on the reasons why some people do not come back for their second dose.
“That’s something that the DOH (Department of Health) and the LGUs (local government units) need to do more about,” he noted.
The DOH has been reiterating that people can only have the maximum potential of COVID-19 vaccines if they receive the full doses.
Over 5.2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered in the country as of May 31. Of this number, over 4 million were given as first doses and 1.2 million were provided as second shots.
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