Check effectiveness of two pneumonia vaccines – House to DOH

Facade of the DOH main office in Manila. (INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO)

MANILA, Philippines — The House of Representatives released a resolution urging the Department of Health (DOH) to study and evaluate the effectiveness of two types of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCV) to address alleged anomalies.

House Resolution No. 2492, dated Feb. 14, urges both the DOH and the Health Technology Assessment Council (HTAC) to “gather sufficient data to study, consider, examine and evaluate” the PCVs — specifically the PCV13 and the more affordable PCV10.

According to the resolution, the DOH continued to procure the more expensive PCV13 starting in 2014 even when the World Health Organization had already said through a position paper in February 2019 that both PCV10 and PCV13 were effective in addressing invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD).

It also stated that HTAC itself found that “overall evidence suggested that both PCV10 and PCV13 are effective in reducing the incidence of IPD and clinical pneumonia caused by their ten shared serotypes when compared to PCV7, other vaccines or no vaccination.”

The resolution further noted that HTAC found that “PCV10 is more affordable than PCV13 and further recognizes that a lower-priced vaccine would be more favorable to ensure higher vaccine coverage on a per-dose basis.”

The lower chamber then explained in the same resolution how crucial the affordability of the vaccine would be to achieve universal coverage, “which is a strategic health priority of the government, and the consideration of other effective CVs may stimulate competition in the procurement of PCVs for the protection of public interest.”

Citing the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA)’s report, the resolution stated that pneumococcal diseases were the fourth biggest cause of mortality in the country in 2020.

The House issued the resolution after a consumer group urged the government to temporarily suspend the procurement of pneumonia vaccines as the bidding process had allegedly gone awry.

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