DOH: 10,000 COVID jab doses tagged as ‘wastage’ still ‘within acceptable range’

FILE PHOTO: A woman holds a small bottle labeled with a “Coronavirus COVID-19 Vaccine” sticker and a medical syringe in this illustration taken October 30, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

MANILA, Philippines — The 10,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines that were labeled as “vaccine wastage” by the government were still within the World Health Organization’s (WHO) acceptable range of spoiled jabs, the Department of Health (DOH) said Monday.

According to Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, the WHO’s acceptable vaccine wastage rate worldwide is at 5 percent.

“When we look at the number of vaccines that were already provided to the population, which is about 40 plus million already, comparing itong 10,000, this would yield a very, very small percentage among those vaccines that were already inoculated to our individuals,” she said during an online briefing.

“’Yun pong ating 10,000 andun pa rin tayo within acceptable range (our 10,000 is still within the acceptable range),” she added.

Vergeire noted that the main causes of wastage are breaches in the implementation of logistic protocols, as well as “unforeseen events” like storms, power outages, and problems encountered during the transportation of COVID-19 vaccines.

The government has so far administered 41.41 million doses of anti-coronavirus vaccines. As of September 20, 18.56 million Filipinos were fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

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