COVID-19 vaccination at the Makati Coliseum (Image from Facebook / MyMakati)
MANILA, Philippines — Makati City Mayor Abby Binay on Thursday bared that there is an “oversupply” of COVID-19 vaccines for certain priority groups in the city and an “undersupply” for those under the A4 category or economic frontliners.
“There is a lack of supply for a certain category and there’s an oversupply for the bigger category. For example, any vaccine coming from the COVAX facility—the Moderna for example—based on the rules of COVAX, you can only give it to A1, A2, A3 and A5,” Binay said in an interview on ABS-CBN News Channel
Healthcare frontliners belong to the A1 group while senior citizens are under the A2 category. Meanwhile, persons with comorbidities and the indigent population are under the A3 and A5 groups, respectively.
“In Makati, we have a huge number of people that are under A4 that are still waiting for their vaccine,” Binay went on.
Makati City Mayor Abby Binay
“So, it is an over and undersupply. It depends on which category you belong. So we have so much for the categories of A1, A2, A3, and A5 but we have a shortage under A4,” she added.
‘We don’t want to cheat’
According to Binay, they are “pressured” by the national government to administer all the vaccine doses distributed to the city.
But while the city can easily use up these vaccines, it is no longer receiving registration under the priority groups which these jabs were allocated for, Binay pointed out.
“We are really pressured by the national government ‘Bakit ang dami niyo pang bakuna?’ Wala nang nagre-register, ‘di na namin sila mahanap. Wala nang A1, A2 and the thing is we don’t really want to cheat,” the mayor said.
(We are really pressured by the national government ‘Why do you still have so much unused vaccine?’ There’s no one registering anymore, we can’t find them. There’s no more A1, A2 and the thing is we don’t really want to cheat.)
“Would we want to put everybody under A5 just to be able to get rid of our allocation of vaccines? Parang sa amin naman, kaya naman naming ubusin yan e. Pero they don’t belong to the priority group,” she added.
(Would we want to put everybody under A5 just to be able to get rid of our allocation of vaccines? For us, we can administer all these vaccines. But they don’t belong to the priority group.)
At one point, she said she even asked if she can use the COVAX-allocated AstraZeneca vaccine doses to vaccinate those under the A4 as well as the general population and will just replace the used jabs with the pending delivery of the same brand procured by Makati.
“There was a time that the vaccine that arrived was AstraZeneca from COVAX and I said ‘Can I use that COVAX for A4 and my genpop, palitan ko na lang [and I will just replace them]?’ Because I have an AstraZeneca order pending,” Binay recalled.
“I did try that avenue and I was not allowed,” she added.
Latest figures show that over 11.3 million Filipinos have so far been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
In Metro Manila, at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine was given to 5.368 million individuals and two doses to 3.927 million residents, making a total of 9.295 million doses administered in the capital region, according to Metropolitan Manila Development Authority chief of staff Michael Salalima.