DOH pressed: Who answers for expired vaccines?

MANILA, Philippines — Opposition Sen. Risa Hontiveros on Monday grilled health officials on the 20.7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines that have expired, lamenting the billions of pesos in wasted government funds.

In a hearing of the Senate committee on health, Hontiveros expressed concern that the country’s vaccine rollout was about to breach the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 10-percent threshold of wastage after the doses that were rendered unusable jumped from 4.7 percent in June to 8.42 percent in August.

With a total of 245.3 million doses administered, and with 11.5 million of these procured, this would put the estimated cost of wastage at P5.78 billion at P500 per dose, the senator said.

“This is still a huge amount, and whether these wasted doses were bought or donated, it becomes even more embarrassing especially if these donated vaccines came from countries that are poorer (than the Philippines),” she pointed out.

The senator raised the matter with Department of Health (DOH) officials as the committee on health tackled her Senate Resolution No. 92, which aims to look into the government’s procurement and administration of COVID-19 vaccines.

Hontiveros rejected the position of the DOH to play down the wastage rate as supposedly still below the accepted threshold.

The senator expressed concern that at the rate vaccines were wasted, the country might breach the WHO threshold by October.

Vaccines vs Omicron

Meanwhile, the head of the government’s vaccine expert panel on Monday said Omicron-adapted vaccine doses from Pfizer and Moderna were likely to be available by October.

Speaking at the Laging Handa public briefing, Dr. Nina Gloriani said the new vaccines would take into account the more than 40 mutations of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, found in the Omicron variant and its subvariants.

Gloriani, however, said the new vaccines might take “a little longer” to reach the Philippines.

“They will have to apply for EUA (emergency use authorization) again for these vaccines. So, it may take another few months before they can be made available for us. But it’s good to plan ahead,” she said.

The Omicron-specific vaccines could be given as the second or third booster dose, she added.

The DOH also reported that the average daily new COVID-19 cases last week rose by 3 percent to 4,001 from the previous week’s 3,904.

Hospital bed occupancy also stayed at around 30 percent, according to the latest weekly DOH bulletin. The DOH considers hospital bed utilization rates below 50 percent as “low risk.”

However, the DOH confirmed that 229 more people had died of COVID-19, the highest reported weekly death toll in months.

—WITH REPORTS FROM DONA Z. PAZZIBUGAN AND JEROME ANING

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