A woman holds a small bottle labeled with a “Coronavirus COVID-19 Vaccine” sticker and a medical syringe in this illustration taken Oct. 30, 2020. (REUTERS FILE PHOTO)
MANILA, Philippines —The 15 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines that will go to waste in the next seven months should serve as a lesson on procurement practices in the government, Maria Rosario Vergeire, the officer in charge of the Department of Health (DOH), said in a briefing on Tuesday.
“Regarding the procurement, it was just the national government [who led] at the time [when] a lot of things were uncertain. But the private sector and the local governments really worked on procuring their own vaccines because they wanted to help,” she told reporters.
Vergeire said that by the time the supplemental deliveries of private companies and local governments arrived in the country, the national government had already inoculated their intended beneficiaries.
This led to a “slight oversupply” of COVID-19 vaccines in the country’s stockpile, she added, noting that in cases when demand is not too high, the national government should just take the lead and manage procurement.
“We need to plan carefully so we can learn from the past issues [and] be able to improve on our procurement practices,” Vergeire said.
About 15.3 million COVID-19 jabs in the country are set to expire from March to October, raising the current vaccine wastage to almost 60 million doses by the latter part of the year.
But Vergeire clarified that, of the 15.3 million jabs, almost 7 million were in “quarantine” while the DOH waits for the Food and Drug Administration and vaccine manufacturers to decide whether their shelf life could be extended.
The DOH’s latest case bulletin, meanwhile, showed a slight increase in daily COVID-19 infections in the past week, with only one confirmed case suffering severe and critical symptoms.
From March 6 to March 12, there were a total of 938 cases, or a daily average of 140 cases, a 7-percent increase compared to the previous week’s 130 cases.
Separate DOH data on Tuesday showed “incremental increases” in COVID-19 trends in Metro Manila and Mindanao, while other areas in the country were plateauing in recent weeks.
Among those hospitalized, 2,916 or 17.1 percent were in non-intensive care unit (ICU) beds, while 265 or 13.4 percent were admitted to the ICU.
A total of 58 fatalities were confirmed in the recent week but only one of them occurred this month. The rest were backlogs from as early as March 2021.
An additional 4,207 individuals were vaccinated with primary series shots last week, pushing the fully vaccinated to a total of 78.4 million. However, only 23.8 million or 30.3 percent of the fully vaccinated individuals had availed themselves of first booster shots as of March 12.
Vergeire stressed that the country was still not out of the emergency phase of the pandemic despite cases and hospitalizations remaining “manageable.”
“I can’t say that by May or June, the emergency [phase] in the country would be over. But what I can tell you confidently is [that] we are able to manage the situation,” she said.