President Rodrigo Duterte has received his second COVID-19 shot, completing his coronavirus inoculation some two months after he received his first jab, Malacañang said on Monday.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III administered what appeared to be the second vaccine dose to Duterte, as seen in photos shared online by his former longtime aide Sen. Christopher Go.
"I confirm that PRRD (Duterte) had his second dose of Sinopharm tonight before his meeting with select members of the IATF (inter-agency task force on COVID-19)," Palace spokesman Harry Roque said in a message to reporters.
Officials said Duterte received his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Sinopharm on May 3. A video and photo of the supposed inoculation were released to the media.
The donated supplies of Sinopharm's vaccine candidate, from which Duterte's supposed first dose was sourced, was granted emergency use authorization by the Philippines' drug regulator over a month later.
SC denies petition vs. Sinovac
The Supreme Court has paved the way for the government to purchase and allow the use of Sinovac, a Chinese manufactured vaccine against the coronavirus disease.
This came as the SC dismissed the petition filed by former Mayor Pedrito Nepomuceno of Boac, Marinduque seeking to stop the government from purchasing Sinovac vaccines, saying President Rodrigo Duterte has been empowered by Republic Act No. 11494, or the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act, to address the pandemic arising from the dreaded COVID-19.
The SC emphasized that RA 11494 mandated the President to exercise powers that are necessary and proper to undertake and implement COVID-19 response and recovery interventions.
“In the case of Sinovac vaccine, while many doubt its efficacy, it is not within the office of this Court to issue an order compelling the government to conduct further tests before the same can be distributed to the Filipino people,” it ruled.
DOH backs Sinovac
The Department of Health assured the public once again that Sinovac’s COVID-19 vaccine was effective.
DOH spokesperson and Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire’s statement was made following reports that fully inoculated health workers in Thailand contracted the respiratory disease.
Vergeire, in an interview on Super Radyo dzBB, said a Chile study involving over 10 million people showed that Sinovac’s effectiveness was 90 percent against ICU admission, 87.5 percent against hospitalization, and 86 percent against death.
Thailand’s health ministry earlier reported that 618 out of 677,348 medical personnel who were fully vaccinated with the Sinovac jab were infected with COVID-19. One nurse died and another health worker were in critical condition.
In the Philippines, the Food and Drug Administration said only 60 mild COVID-19 cases were recorded among individuals who got two shots of the Sinovac jab.
LGUS want more jabs
The Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP) appealed Monday appealed to the national government to allocate more COVID-19 vaccines to provinces and allow the inoculation of those under A4 category.
Interviewed on ANC, ULAP president and Quirino Governor Dakila Cua pointed out there was a policy issue on why the A4 vaccination had not started yet.
“Our number one request is to give more allocation to provinces. And number two, the NCR + 8 has been authorized to inoculate A4. In provinces, not yet. I hope it will be allowed,” Cua said.
According to Cua, the vaccination rollout should be shifted to provinces now considering the surge of COVID-19 cases in these areas.
In June, Iloilo City Mayor Geronimo Treñas blamed the rising number of COVID-19 cases in Western Visayas to the allocation of most vaccine doses to the NCR Plus area.
In a July 9 report, OCTA Research identified the cities of Davao, Iloilo, General Santos, Cagayan de Oro, Baguio, and Tagum as areas of concern due to their upward COVID-19 trends.
As of Saturday, the Philippines has received a total of 20,607,570 doses from different COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers.
Chinese jabs for COVAX
Two Chinese vaccine makers, Sinovac and Sinopharm, have agreed to immediately begin making more than 100 million Covid vaccine doses available to the Covax distribution facility, Gavi said Monday.
"The agreements, which come at a time when the Delta variant is posing a rising risk to health systems, will begin to make 110 million doses immediately available to participants of the Covax facility, with options for additional doses," said the vaccine alliance Gavi, which is one of the facility's main backers.
Johnson and Johnson jabs arriving
Around 3.2 million doses of Johnson and Johnson (J&J) vaccine against COVID-19 will be delivered to the country on July 19, the Department of Health said Monday.
During the Laging Handa forum, Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said these 3.2 million J&J vaccine doses were a donation from the United States government through the global aid COVAX facility.
These will be used on senior citizens and persons with comorbidities.
“The directive from [vaccine czar] Secretary [Carlito] Galvez is to use the J&J largely on senior citizens since that will be very convenient for senior citizens and those residing in far flung areas,” Cabotaje said.
Unlike other brands, J&J vaccine is a single-dose vaccine. This will be the first J&J shipment to reach Philippine shores.
Japan donation
As for the over three million doses of two-dose AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine which arrived last week, Cabotaje said that the one million doses donated by Japan would be allocated in NCR Plus 8, 1.5 million doses for second dose, and the remaining 500,000 doses would be deployed nationwide.
Galvez has ordered the direct deployment of COVID-19 vaccines to Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi provinces, which have porous borders and amid rising number of the more transmissible Delta variant cases in nearby Malaysia and Indonesia, Cabotaje also said.
Cabotaje said the Philippines had vaccinated 13 million individuals, of whom 3.52 million were already fully vaccinated.
The Philippines is aiming to fully vaccinate 58 million individuals in highly urbanized areas to achieve population protection by the end of the year.
13 million doses administered
In a televised briefing, Cabotaje said of the total 13,196,282 vaccine doses administered, some 9.6 million first doses were first jabs, while around 3.5 million were second shots.
Authorities have said those who have received their second shot of a 2-dose regimen vaccine brand are considered fully vaccinated.
Around 96 percent of about 1.6 million health workers, the top priority in the country's immunization drive, have received at least one vaccine dose, Cabotaje said.
Meanwhile, about 31 percent of 8 million target senior citizens, the second priority group, have received at least one COVID-19 shot, Cabotaje added.
To encourage more elderly people to get vaccinated, authorities are hosting town hall meetings, setting up special lanes for them, and offering house-to-house inoculation, said the health official.
UNICEF talks
Authorities were in talks with the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and other partners to build a vaccine depot for the Bangsamoro region, which has among the lowest immunization coverage rates.
The government would focus on the vaccination in Sulu and Tawi-Tawi provinces because of their "porous borders" with Malaysia and Indonesia, which have detected the more infectious Delta COVID-19 variant, she said.
With some 1.4 million coronavirus infections, the second highest in Southeast Asia, the Philippines aims to vaccinate 58 to 70 million of its 109 population against COVID-19 to safely reopen the economy.
Antibody tests
Experts have warned that getting vaccinated with COVID-19 vaccines might lead people to get lax prematurely on health protocols, and antibody testing after vaccination may worsen this.
A group of doctors specializing in allergy and immunology made the warning on COVID-19-vaccinated individuals against taking an antibody level test—a tool to check one's level of protection against COVID-19—because this might create a false sense of protection against the virus, which has now produced several variants that are deemed more infectious and have lowered some vaccines' efficacy.
In a statement, the Philippine Society of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology (PSAAI) said that tests in the Philippines used to measure the amount of protection elicited by COVID-19 vaccines were not yet evaluated and assessed.
“Inaccurately interpreted antibody test results may give people a false sense of protection which may push them to lower their guard,” the PSAAI statement read.