CEBU CITY -- Senator Imee Marcos expressed her shock at the millions of vaccine doses that have not yet been administered due to transport and other backlogs yet, local government units said they were not entirely to blame for the country’s delay in meeting its vaccination targets.
Marcos added that a shocking 40 million doses remain unused not because of LGU negligence, but rather because of logistical logjams either at the Department of Health (DOH), Bureau of Customs (BOC) or somewhere in our chaotic distribution and storage chains,” explaining a Bloomberg report released Tuesday.
The Philippines has fully vaccinated about 25 percent of its estimated 111 million people, ranking ninth out of the 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ahead only of Myanmar.
Marcos added however, that the Philippines was in a more challenging predicament as an archipelagic nation, which complicated the delivery and storage of vaccines in island provinces.
To hasten the pace of vaccination and prevent the wastage of vaccines, Marcos said that registration for booster shots should already begin ahead of their anticipated approval for public health policy by the World Health Organization later this November.
Ramping up delivery and cold-chain capacities must also be coordinated with LGUs to preserve the efficacy of vaccines, in case these need to be stored longer than expected, she added.
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