Despite the slow pace of its immunization program and the recent spike in infections, the government on Tuesday announced it is targeting to eliminate novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in the country by next year through the acquisition of new generation of vaccines.
Chief implementer of the government’s national policy on Covid-19 Carlito G. Galvez disclosed they are now looking for a “second or third generation” vaccine, which, he said, would prevent Covid-19 affliction.
Currently, the available Covid-19 jabs, while protecting it recipients from the adverse symptoms of the disease, they do not guarantee total immunity.
Galvez revealed they were already given a “presentation” by some companies, which are offering vaccines which prevent contamination.
“We will work with the different manufacturing companies on how to eliminate the disease by 2022,” Galvez said during an online news briefing.
Precautionary measure
The bold pronouncement came after Galvez admitted that the government is falling behind its target of using up all its current inventory of 1.12 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines.
Of the said vaccines, 100,000 doses will be used by government uniformed personnel, while the rest will be for medical workers.
Out of the over 500,000 medical workers, who are expected to benefit from the said jabs, only around 216,000 have been inoculated against Covid-19 as of Tuesday, according to Galvez.
The vaccine czar attributed this to the precautionary measure adopted by hospitals and other medical facilities to have their personnel vaccinated in batches to ensure their operations will not be disrupted in case some will suffer adverse reactions from the vaccine.
“If there will be any downtime among those who will be vaccinated, their hospital will suffer. That is why there having their personnel vaccinated at 150 per day. So this is tedious [scheme],” Galvez said.
Rising risk
The government is trying to ramp up its contact tracing efforts and vaccinate individuals amid the recent spike in the daily number of new Covid-19 cases nationwide, which now average over 4,000 since last week.
As of Tuesday, the Department of Health (DOH) said there are now 631,320 confirmed Covid-19 cases in the country.
Galvez attributed the growing number of new cases to several factors, including the relaxed compliance of the public to minimum health standards as well as the entry of more infectious variants of Covid-19 in the country.
In response, local government units recently enforced curfews and movement restrictions to prevent the spread of the virus in communities in the next two weeks.
The National Task Force (NTF) against Covid-19 also recommended limiting the entry of travelers in the country to just 1,500 per day to minimize the risk of the entry of carriers of new variants in the country.
“We will limit inbound passengers to only OFWs [overseas Filipino workers]. Foreigners and other non-essentials and other overseas Filipinos will be limited or suspended for two weeks,” Galvez said.
However, the government is still eyeing the mass vaccination and intensified contact tracing as long-term solution for the spread of Covid-19.