The Department of Health (DOH) on Wednesday, May 12, sought to address concerns on how fast the government can administer the more than two million AstraZeneca vaccine doses recently delivered to the Philippines, considering that the supplies are scheduled to expire in one to two months.

In a virtual briefing on Wednesday, Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said that Health Secretary Francisco Duque III and vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. agreed to deploy 1.5 million doses of the vaccines as first shots, while the remaining jabs will be prioritized as second doses for individuals who received their first shot in March. 

Cabotaje said the DOH gave the directive after Galvez and Duque met with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the country’s vaccine experts on the matter on Tuesday, May 11. 

“During the meeting yesterday with the WHO, Secretary Duque, Secretary Galvez, and Secretary (Vince) Dizon, together with the experts, they agreed that for the two million, 500 [thousand] will be the second dose for those given the vaccine in March, while the 1.5 [million] will all be used as first doses,” she said. 

Of the more than two million AstraZeneca vaccine doses that the Philippines received from the WHO-led COVAX global facility last weekend, 1.5 million doses will expire on June 30, 2021, while 525,600 will expire on July 31, 2021. 

The health official expressed confidence the government could use up its supplies of AstraZeneca vaccines before their expiration since a similar effort to use previous deliveries of some 525,600 AstraZeneca doses saw vaccinations reach a peak of 90,000 jabs in a single day. 

“Based on our experience in the past, when we allowed all of this to be used as a first dose, we were able to have a one-time highest [vaccination] of 90,000 in a day,” Cabotaje said in a mix of English and Filipino. 

With about 1,000 vaccination sites currently in operation, Cabotaje said the government wanted to see at least 70,000 to 100,00 vaccinations done daily, which would be enough to use all two million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine before they expired. This is assuming that some 100 people were administered the shot in each site every day. 

“Kung may 1,000 tayong mga vaccination sites ngayon, at sabihin nating mga 100 vaccinees per day (If we have 1,000 sites now and say we vaccinate 100 vaccinees per day), multiplied by 1,000 sites, we can produce the numbers,” Cabotaje said. 

Under this target, it would take some three weeks for the 1.5 million AstraZeneca vaccines to be used if 70,000 shots are administered daily and about two weeks or 15 days if 100,000 vaccinations are completed. 

Cabotaje said the DOH got the commitment of regional offices that worked with local governments to meet the government’s target number of daily vaccinations. 

LGU’s deadline?

During the briefing, Cabotaje also clarified reports that local governments had been given until May 18 to administer supplies of the AstraZeneca vaccine, based on an advisory from the National Task Force for COVID-19. 

Cabotaje said the May 18 deadline had initially covered vaccines in the May 8 AstraZeneca shipment and previous shipments of 525,600 doses in March, but that this would no longer be observed after the DOH ordered the AstraZeneca vaccines to be used as first doses. 

Cabotaje said the May 18 deadline was given to address the 525,600 doses delivered in March, which will expire on May 31, 2021. Of this, the health official said about 13,920 doses were not yet used, and should be administered before they expire. 

“We wanted to make sure that if there were still vaccines left expiring on May 31, that these were used because there were still some that were not given…. But with the adjustment that the 1.5 million doses will be used as first doses, there is no more May 18 deadline for most of the vaccines for AstraZeneca,” she said in a mix of English and Filipino. 

No vaccination of economic frontliners yet

Meanwhile, Cabotaje turned down the proposal of Dr. Tony Leachon to open up vaccinations to the next priority sector, A4, composed of economic frontliners from several industries and government agencies. Leachon was a former adviser to the National Task Force for COVID-19, overseen by Galvez. 

Citing vaccination figures so far, Cabotaje said about 24% of health workers in the A1 priority group still needed to get vaccinated, while only 6% of senior citizens in the A2 priority group already received their first dose. The number of people who got the first shot of the vaccine was even smaller for the A3 priority sector or people with comorobidities, estimated to total about 14.5 million. 

“The AstraZeneca vaccines come from the COVAX facility and the priority of COVAX is A1, A2, and A3 so we cannot give this yet to other areas (sectors),” she said. 

While many lamented the slow rollout of vaccines so far – with about 40,000 to 60,000 average vaccinations done daily – Cabotaje said the government is confident that this would speed up as more supplies arrive. She cited a slowdown in distribution after vaccinations were paused in several cities when supplies dried up in April. 

Since the government began its vaccine drive on March 1, around 1.79% of the country’s population have received the first of two doses of the vaccine. Meanwhile, those who have taken both jabs represent around 0.41% of the population as of May 8. – Rappler.com