Department of Health (DOH) Officer-in-Charge Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that all expired and expiring Covid-19 vaccines in the country will be replaced by the COVAX facility.
“We had an agreement with the COVAX facility that these will all be replaced,” Vergeire said when asked by the media for an update.
She said that Covid vaccines that will be replaced include those from the private sector and the local government units.
However, Vergeire said that there are scheduled dates of replacing these expired and expiring vaccines.
“Dahil sa ngayon, sufficient ang bakuna natin [Because as of now, we still have sufficient vaccine supply]” Vergeire said.
Earlier, former Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Jose ‘Joey’ Concepcion III in a statement, Concepcion slammed the DOH and the Health Technology Assessment Council (HTAC) on their late decision to allow 50 years and older, and for 18 to 49 year-olds with comorbidities to receive their second booster shot.
Concepcion said that the final tally of expired Covid vaccines in private sector warehouses is 4,252,830, translating to a loss of $100.1 million, or an estimate of P5.1 billion.
Meanwhile, Vergeire reported that as of August 8, 2022, more than 71.9 million Filipinos have been fully-vaccinated.
Also, more than 9.7 million adolescents along with more than 4.2 million children have been fully-vaccinated.
“Almost 6.8 million senior citizens are already inoculated,” she said.
More than 16.6 million individuals are already part of PinasLakas and more than 1.5 million have received their 2nd booster shots.