A "number" of non-frontliners have jumped the country's COVID-19 vaccination queue, an official of the Department of Health said Monday.
Treatment czar and Health Undersecretary Leopoldo Vega said there were reports of non-health workers jumping the vaccination line.
"We’ve had reports of this. Although we've been saying this can’t be because we have a prioritized vaccination in terms of health workers. This has been observed. The numbers are very insignificant but we do see a number jumping the queue," he told ANC's Headstart.
"I'm not so sure of the specifics but I'm aware there are, who really are jumping the queue,” Vega said.
When asked about possible penalties, Vega said he was leaving it to government's vaccine cluster.
"This has been observed across the globe.
There has been a jump in the queue and we cannot avoid this oftentimes, sometimes it happens," he said.
The Philippines earlier this month began its immunization program against COVID-19, prioritizing health workers who battle the disease in the frontlines.
The country has so far inoculated "below 50 percent" of its healthworkers nationwide, according to Vega.
Government aims to vaccinate this year 50 to 70 million Filipinos or a third of its population to achieve herd immunity.
"In Metro Manila we have already given the first dose to roughly about 71-75 percent of all healthcare workers. In provinces, it’s still low. We’re just hitting about 35 percent probably at this time," he said.
The administration earlier received flak following the unauthorized inoculation of President Rodrigo Duterte's security detail.
Former special envoy to China Mon Tulfo had also said he was vaccinated with Sinopharm, which has yet to be approved for emergency use in the country.
The Department of Health said Monday coronavirus vaccines that would remain unused by Wednesday, March 24, would be transferred to areas suffering the brunt of the fresh surge in infections.
“We have been vaccinating a long time already. This vaccination should have been finished in a certain period of time,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a briefing.
“They have to do this expeditiously specially now that the cases are rising,” Vergeire said.
“We gave them a deadline. We told them that the vaccines must be used up by March 24. If they fail to do so, we will take their supply so we can vaccinate those who have not been inoculated in areas with a high number of cases” she said.
Vergeire stressed this did not mean that some vaccination sites would permanently lose their supply since more stocks would be redeployed once additional doses arrived in the country.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III was the first to float the idea of “borrowing” COVID-19 vaccines from areas with low uptake to prioritize health workers in Metro Manila and Regions 3, 4A, and 7.
The proposal was opposed by the League of Provinces of the Philippines, who said the vaccine supply in the provinces was already limited.
Vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. and Health Undersecretary Vega also raised logistical concerns about the proposal to transfer vaccines from one area to another.
The DOH said it would continue to study the matter.
The Philippines has vaccinated 336,656 health workers as of March 20.
Meanwhile, The Department of Health said the Philippines had vaccinated more than 300,000 people and had deployed almost all of the COVID-19 vaccines that have arrived in the Philippines.
Vergeire told reporters that as of March 20 or almost three weeks after the vaccine rollout started, 336,656 had been vaccinated.
The country has so far received 525,600 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from the COVAX Facility and 600,000 doses of Sinovac vaccines donated by China.
The health official also said they were giving a deadline for hospitals to use up their COVID-19 vaccines because of the need to vaccinate as many health workers as soon as possible.
Facilities unable to meet the deadline of March 24 might have to return their vaccines so that those can be administered to other hospitals.
While the government is prioritizing health workers because of the high risk of contracting COVID-19 while on duty, there have been reports of non-frontliners getting ahead of the vaccination queue.
Vergeire appealed to the public to respect the prioritization framework, especially since jumping the line might cause the COVAX Facility, a vaccine-sharing initiative, to halt its donations to the country.
“Their objective is to prioritize vulnerable groups. That means, the priority sectors should be followed,” she said.
The World Health Organization, a member of the COVAX Facility, has repeatedly explained that one of the conditions of the donations is for the countries to prioritize health workers.
The Philippines is expected to pay for only 25 percent of the COVAC Facility’s COVID-19 vaccine allocation for the country.
Senator Win Gatchalian is urging the National Task Force Against COVID-19 and the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases to move teachers up in the priority list for the COVID-19 vaccination program.
The senator said he supported a similar call from at least 33 education, business and medical groups who signed a position paper calling on the government to move teachers from B1 to the A4 priority list.
The A4 priority list includes frontline personnel in essential sectors.
The category also includes uniformed personnel and those belonging to other essential sectors. Under the current prioritization of the COVID-19 vaccine deployment plan, teachers have been placed in the B1 priority list together with social workers.
In the plan, teachers can receive their jabs after frontline healthcare workers, senior citizens, persons with comorbidities, those in the indigent population, and those in the A4 list have been vaccinated.
Gatchalian stressed that teachers were also frontliners, risking their health and safety to ensure learning continuity for more than 26 million learners in the basic education sector.
He added that inoculating teachers as quickly as possible would hasten the safe reopening of schools and curb adult-to-adult transmission of the virus when face-to-face classes resume.
The lawmaker also cited the example of Indonesia, which inoculated teachers ahead of vulnerable groups
Last year, international bodies like the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund called on governments to prioritize teachers in the COVID-19 vaccination program.