MANILA – The Philippines will be more cautious in choosing the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine to be inoculated on the elderly population.
This came after reports that 23 senior citizens in Norway died after being administered with a Pfizer vaccine.
Testing czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said they will make sure that a similar incident will not happen in the Philippines once the government’s COVID-19 vaccination program begins.
“Ang ating goal is zero casualty and as much as possible, very close watch,” Galvez, also the chief implementer of the National Task Force against COVID-19, said in an interview with DZBB on Sunday.
According to a report of the Norwegian Medicines agency, the deaths were associated with COVID-19 vaccination, 13 of which have already been assessed.
“Common adverse reactions may have contributed to a severe course in elderly people who are frail,” the report read. “The large studies on Comirnaty did not include patients with unstable or acute illness – and included few participants over 85 years of ages.”
As response, Galvez said he reached out to Health secretary Francisco Duque III to reassess their plan for administering the vaccine to senior citizens in the Philippines.
“Sinabi namin na mas maganda ‘yung original plan namin na 18 hanggang 59 [years old] lang muna at hahanap tayo ng bakuna na pang-matanda talaga,” Galvez said.
“Based sa initial report ng Norway, talagang delikado ‘yung 80 and above. So ‘yun ang talagang titignan natin lalo na ‘yung talagang may komplikasyon at talagang nakikita natin ‘yung mga frail. Kasi titignan natin din ‘yung risk and benefit ng bakuna natin,” he added.
The Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency use authorization to the COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech last week./PN
