Philippines mulls extending shelf life of expiring COVID-19 vaccines
Philippines mulls extending shelf life of expiring COVID-19 vaccines
MANILA — The Department of Health said on Friday it was studying the possibility of extending the expiry dates of some COVID-19 vaccines to allow various areas to use up their existing inventory.
Authorities are “finalizing” the report on expiring COVID-19 shots, said DOH Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje.
“Tinitingnan natin saan ito at ano iyong mga kadahilanan at hindi nai-jab ito,” said Cabotaje, chairperson of the National Vaccination Operations Center.
(We are looking at where these vaccines are and the reasons that they were not jabbed.)
“We are also looking at the possibility of trying to extend shelf life, tinitingnan natin iyong mga batch number,” she said in a televised public briefing.
(We are looking at the batch numbers.)
Cabotaje noted Canada extended the shelf life of a number of COVID-19 shots “based on some stability data.”
The extension covered 2 lots of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine by 30 days, reports said.
Around 14,000 AstraZeneca doses recently expired in Negros Occidental and were not used in its vaccination drive.
“Hindi na nagamit ‘yun sa rollout sa vaccination day. Ang iba kasing LGU hindi na tinanggap ‘yun kasi may ibang mga available na na bakuna,” said Dr. Caludelia Pabillo, who is in charge of vaccine distribution there.
(That was not used on vaccination day because some LGUs did not accept them as there were other available vaccines.)
“They preferred to use other vaccines para mahikayat ang mga tao na magpabakuna (to encourage people to get inoculated).”
The DOH is investigating who is liable for the incident, Cabotaje said.
But she noted, “We expect some [vaccine] wastage in big campaigns.”
“We’ll just be more circumspect… Paiigtingin po natin ang ating pagmo-monitor although halos araw-araw na natin pinagsasabihan sila,” she added.
(We will intensify our monitoring, although we have been reminding them almost everyday.)
The Philippines has fully vaccinated at least 37.3 million of its 109 million population against COVID-19.
It has yet to detect any case of the newly discovered Omicron coronavirus variant.
Classified by the World Health Organization as a “variant of concern,” Omicron has sparked global concern and border closures.
