Marcos: PHL to acquire next-gen vaccines to address emerging Covid-19 subvariants

THE government is eyeing to procure new generation vaccines to address emerging subvariants of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SAR-COV-2), which cause novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19), President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. said on Thursday.

In his speech during the 15th Philippine National Health Research System (PNHRS) Week at the Clark Freeport Zone in Pampanga, Marcos stressed the need for the government to continue its evidence-based response against Covid-19 and other future pandemic.

Among the said measures, he said, is providing additional vaccine coverage to the public.

“Here we come again with a new variant of coronavirus that we—of Omicron that now we have to deal with, that you have to genome sequence again, that we have to find a booster so that the people are fully immunized,” Marcos said.

Last Tuesday, the Department of Health (DOH) reported 924 new cases of the Omicron subvariants BA.5, BA.4 and BA2.12.1 in the country.

The Philippine Genome Center attributed the rise in the number of Covid-19 cases in previous weeks to the spread of BA.5.

Government officials stressed the need for the public to get their booster shots to maintain their reduced risk from Covid-19 due to the waning effect of existing vaccines.

As of August 10, 2022, the DOH said only 16.8 million or around 23.5 percent of the 71.52 million fully vaccinated individuals nationwide have availed of their booster shots.

To ensure the government’s response could keep up with the ever evolving threat posed by Covid-19, he committed his administration to continue its support to the research community, whom he considers crucial frontliners in the fight against the pandemic.

He said the creation of the local Virology Center and Disease Control Center would help in the said endeavor.

“We have been in consultation with the House of Representatives and the Senate to bring this—to create these agencies so that we can bring them to bear in what we are up to now continuing to have to fight,” Marcos said.