PH vax wastage remains minimal: NTF

MANILA – The Philippines has so far recorded a minimal percentage of Covid-19 vaccine wastage, particularly in areas devastated by typhoons, National Task Force (NTF) against Covid-19 chief Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. said Wednesday.

In a virtual media forum, Galvez said they are actually expecting at least 5 million Covid-19 vaccines will be spoiled in typhoon-hit areas.

“Because of good SOPs that we have, we saw that there is a very minimal wastage during Odette and at the same time with the onslaught of Agaton. We really expect 5 million doses will be spoiled due to Typhoon Odette. But we received reports that only a few jabs were put to waste, more or less 200,000 doses only,” Galvez said.

Galvez, also the country’s vaccine czar, said the government and the Department of Health (DOH) are still evaluating the number of vaccine doses damaged by the recent Tropical Storm Agaton.

“We have not yet received reports on that but hopefully—the affected areas only in Western Visayas. I would like to commend regional and provincial authorities for taking good care of the vaccines,” Galvez said.

He noted that power generators are on standby to make sure the vaccines will be kept safe during calamities.

“We are very thankful that during the time of Odette. We have a very minimal wastage,” he added.

Galvez cited other countries were even recording as high as 20 percent vaccine wastage of their total supplies.

“Here, we only have 2.1 percent as reported by Usec. Myrna [Cabotaje],” he added.

Galvez said the vaccine wastage is unavoidable due to its short shelf-life of only three to four months. Thus, the need to further ramp up the administration of the Covid-19 jabs nationwide.

“That remains our major challenge,” he added.

Galvez said the government plans to donate vaccines nearing expiration dates to avoid further wastage.

“We have two arrangements. We see that we can donate that through ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) and Philippine Red Cross and also we are looking at the diplomatic exchanges with embassy-to-embassy,” Galvez said.

“We are just waiting for the final approval of that arrangement and hopefully we can deliver vaccines to those countries needing more supplies. In order to prevent more spoilage, it’s much better they can use it,” he added.

Galvez said the government eyes to delivering AstraZeneca, Sputnik V, and Moderna jabs to Asian and South African countries with low vaccination coverage and a high number of Covid-19 infections.

He further assured the public there is enough supply of Covid-19 vaccines to be used both for primary series and booster shots.