The Department of Health on Saturday said inoculation efforts using the Moderna vaccine against COVID-19 would not be suspended after Japan halted its domestic distribution of the brand amid reports of contamination.
“Here in the Philippines, we inspect all the batches of vaccines before we use them and we have not seen similar contamination in the Moderna vaccines delivered to our country,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire.
“We are not going to stop the Moderna inoculation,” she added.
Japan on Thursday suspended the use of 1.63 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine after reports of contamination in several vials, drugmaker Takeda and the health ministry said.
Takeda, which is in charge of sales and distribution of the Moderna shot in Japan, said it had “received reports from several vaccination centres that foreign substances have been found inside unopened vials.”
“Upon consultation with the health ministry, we have decided to suspend the use of the vaccine” from three batches from Thursday, it added.
In a statement, Moderna said the reported contaminations involved “one product lot distributed in Japan.”
Vergeire said the contamination incident in Japan will not affect the Philippines’ procurement of the Moderna vaccine in the future.
“We have protocols for us to ensure that the vaccines arriving are safe for use,” she said.
Since the government’s vaccination program began in March, the country has already received 4.29 million doses of Moderna jabs.