DOH eyes 6-month jab gap for kids

By: Kathleen de Villa - 3 years ago

Kickoff ceremony for Pfizer Pediatric 5-11 years old COVID-19 vaccination at Poblacion Brgy Gym, Municipality of Tboli. Screenshot from Facebook / Rural Health Unit- RHU TBOLI

MANILA, Philippines — The government is looking to administer booster shots to children and teens six to nine months after their primary vaccine doses, Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said at a press briefing on Thursday.

Cabotaje said that while there is no recommendation yet for booster jabs for those below 18 years old, the Department of Health (DOH) is considering this as experts continue to study the waning protection of vaccines in the younger age group.

“We’ll see after six months … nine months if they still have protection, and if there are breakthrough infections in these [age] groups,” said Cabotaje, who is also the National Vaccination Operations Center chair.

Meanwhile, she said that initial vaccination figures on Day 1 of the fourth national vaccination day (NVD) would come in today.

Of the total 1.8 million individuals targeted to be inoculated in the three-day nationwide drive, about 768,000 are seen to receive booster shots.

The health department had said that the targets for the fourth NVD are “more contextualized in consideration of areas with low inoculation rates and coverage.”

“We aim to inoculate those who don’t see the urgency or those with no access [to vaccination]. And then, we convince them, and then we utilize barangay captains and officials so we could find those who are still unvaccinated,” Cabotaje said.

She also bared the government’s new overall vaccination targets: 70 million fully vaccinated individuals by the end of this month and 90 million by June this year.

As of March 9, 64 million have been fully vaccinated, or 58 percent of the 110 million Filipinos, while 10.7 million have received a booster shot.