INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) is planning to keep the administration of COVID-19 vaccines free for indigents, should the government decide to finally lift the country’s public health emergency status due to the novel coronavirus.
“[T]he government will not buy [COVID-19 vaccines] for everyone anymore,” Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa told reporters during the launching on Tuesday night of Ayala-led AC Health’s new network of health-care facilities, Healthway Medical Network.
“That’s why the CPR (certificate of product registration) is very important so that the private sector [can provide for] those who can afford to pay, and your taxes will be used for the people who cannot afford,” he said, referring to the regulatory approval granted to drugmaker Pfizer for its bivalent COVID-19 jabs.
It is unclear, however, whether the free vaccines would cover only future procurements or also include the monovalent ones bought and delivered to the country under the public emergency phase.
The Inquirer sought a clarification from the DOH regarding this, but had yet to get a reply as of press time.
Drugstores with freezers
Asked about the timeline of the rollout of commercial bivalent vaccines, Herbosa sees their availability in the market “hopefully soon” as these would have to be stored in pharmacies with a temperature-controlled refrigerator or freezer to maintain their potency against the virus.
“The problem is it cannot go to an ordinary drugstore…. The [vaccines] must be supplied to pharmacies that have the freezer,” he said.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Monday that it had issued a CPR for Pfizer’s bivalent jabs under the brand name Comirnaty Original/Omicron BA.4-5. The vaccines may be given to adults and children 12 years old and up.
$110-$130 per shot
In October last year, Pfizer said it plans to charge $110 to $130 for a shot of its COVID-19 vaccine in the United States once the US government stopped footing the bill.
Last week, the DOH said that it was in talks again with COVAX for a possible shipment of 2 million bivalent doses sometime this year. This would augment the 390,000 doses of bivalent Pfizer vaccines that the country received from the Lithuanian government this month.
The latest available COVID-19 vaccination data from the DOH showed that as of March 20, some 78.4 million people had been fully vaccinated in the Philippines, exceeding the government target.
Over 23.8 million of them had availed themselves of the first booster shots, while 4.4 million had yet to get their second boosters.