Another batch of more than 1 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines purchased by the government arrived in the Philippines on Wednesday.
It consists of 1.056 million doses of reformulated Pfizer vaccine suitable for children ages 5 to 11 and 128,361 doses of Pfizer vaccine for ages 12 and older.
Vaccines were purchased with the help of funding from the World Bank.
Following the advent of these new vaccines, the Philippines has received nearly 234 million (233,857,671) vaccines.
New vaccines arrive one day before the 4th National Vaccination Days to be held from March 10 to 12.
It targets to vaccinate 1.8 million children.
According to the National Task Force Against COVID-19, 137,085,697 vaccines were distributed on March 7. As a result, there are 63,793,957 Filipinos fully vaccinated.
An additional more than 1 million doses of the vaccine for children are expected to arrive on Thursday.
Meanwhile, despite the good condition of the Philippines when it comes to COVID-19, health experts themselves have said that the country is likely to experience another surge.
The more contagious omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, remains prevalent in the Philippines.
Because it affects the vaccine’s efficacy, a person’s immunity is seen to decrease 3 to 6 months after being vaccinated or having a natural infection.
New batches of over 1-M vaccines for children, adults arrive
So for infectious disease expert Dr. Rontgene Solante, it is possible to see a resurgence in the number of those getting sick in the coming months.
“If there will still be community transmission of Omicron variant, in April, May, June, there will be a segment of the population who are vaccinated but whose immunity has waned and can develop the infection,” Solante said.
“If the cases are only mild, then there are treatments for that. They can isolate. But again, if the cases are mild but this affects the vulnerable population, this is the population that will really be at risk of severe infection,” he added.
Even if there is a surge, it will not be worse than those experienced before.
The important thing is that even if the number of illnesses increases, the number of hospitalizations will still be kept low.
Since the number of new COVID-19 cases is still low, it is only appropriate to extend Alert Level 1 to the National Capital region and 38 other areas, according to Solante.
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