No serious adverse events from booster jabs rollout: DOH

MANILA – The government has so far reported “zero” serious adverse events since the rollout of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) booster shots for priority sectors which include healthcare workers, senior citizens and immunocompromised began, Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Francisco Duque III said on Wednesday.

In an interview, Duque said the pain from injection was the most commonly recorded reaction of vaccinees after receiving the booster shots.

“No serious adverse events following immunization. So these are the usual localized pain or the usual slight fever,” Duque said.

He added that the booster jabs will give a recipient the same side effects as the primary doses.

Meanwhile, Duque said it is very important that all Filipinos must be given primary doses first, prior to expanding the booster shots vaccination to other sectors.

“Well our policy continues that we would much rather provide the primary series–the first and second dose–to unvaccinated more than the boosters,” he said.

Duque said the protection that the population gets by inoculating everyone, rather than doing boosting, “is going to be much higher and a much more sound promising.”

Currently, the government holds a simultaneous administration of primary doses to the general population and children aged 12 to 17 with the boosters vaccination of vulnerable sectors.

Duque, however, cited the need to address challenges with “those who are still having doubts and still struck by vaccine hesitancy” to reach the population protection target as soon as possible.

Based on the latest data from the National Covid-19 vaccination dashboard, the Philippines has already administered a total of 77,560,344 doses of Covid-19 vaccines with, more than 34 million Filipinos or 44.33 percent of the total target population are fully protected against the dreaded disease.

Of the total administered jabs, 43,290,294 doses were given as first shots, 34,199,550 were second doses, and 70,500 doses were used as booster shots.

The country has so far received a total of 135,161,900 doses of Covid-19 vaccines from different pharmaceutical companies, both procured and donations, with 107,204,830 doses have been deployed nationwide and 57,601,556 are still on the vaccine stockpile.