Manila official laments ‘slow pace’ in booster jabs

MANILA: A senior Department of Health (DOH) official on Saturday bewailed the “slow pace” since the government launched the campaign less than a week ago to encourage more Filipinos with comorbidities to take their second coronavirus booster jabs.

Health Secretary Myrna Cabotaje noted that so far, more than 6,700 Filipinos with health risks or comorbidities had received their second booster shot to boost their protection against COVID-19.

Cabotaje pointed out that the government had enough vaccines when it launched the campaign on April 25. She said their target was the estimated 700,000 Filipinos with comorbidities (like cancer and diabetes), particularly senior citizens and frontliners such as doctors and nurses.

“Yes, we have enough vaccines for the second booster. But right now, the campaign is rather slow,” Cabotaje, the head of the DOH National Vaccination Operations Centre, told a media briefing in a mix of Filipino and English.

Based on records, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved the DOH request to administer the second booster shot to its primary target using five COVD-19 vaccine brands. These included Pfizer, Moderna, Astrazeneca, Sinovac and Sinopharm.

Health experts pointed out the slow rate that highlighted the new campaign resembled earlier government atempts to encourage more fully vaccinated Filipinos to get their first booster shot.

The experts said this could be gleaned from the low rate in the campaign for more booster shots. They said DOH data indicated that 67 million Filipinos have been fully vaccinated since the government rolled out its nationwide campaign on March 1, 2021.

In sharp contrast, the same data showed that only 13.2 million Filipinos had received their first boosters. But experts cited the urgent need for Filipinos to take their first or second boosters to strengthen their protection against the virus.

The experts, for instance, warned that the efficacy of the vaccines would wane in three to four months. But apparently they said that one of the major reasons for the hesitancy among Filipino to get their boosters was that they already “felt safe” since they have been fully vaccinated.

And more so, such sentiment has been buttressed by the significant dip in daily COVID-19 infections, according to experts. They noted that the sharp decline in COVID-19 cases has been manifested by the government decision to extend the least restrictive COVID-19 Alert Level 1 in Metro Manila and 90 other areas throughout the country with effect from May 1 to 15.