By Ma. Teresa Montemayor | Philippine News Agency
MANILA – An infectious disease expert on Monday (March 21) urged fully vaccinated individuals to get their booster shots to prevent another surge of COVID-19 cases.
In a televised public briefing, Department of Health – Technical Advisory Group member Edsel Salvaña said that the resurgence of infections is a possibility since COVID-19 “showed surprises worldwide”.
“We have tools with which we have turned COVID into almost an endemic virus. Kung mapapagpatuloy pa natin ‘to, wala na pong bagong variant na lumabas, tuloy-tuloy na po ‘yan (If we can continue these, no new variant comes out, these will go on) towards endemicity,” he said.
The administration of a fourth dose for the immunocompromised, Salvaña said, is being studied as data are “still very preliminary” worldwide.
To date, 65,171,415 Filipinos are fully vaccinated while 11,530,728 of them have booster shots.
The vaccination for the pediatric sector also continues to gain momentum, with some 11 million aged five to 17 receiving at least one dose.
This number is expected to increase following the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the use of the Sinovac vaccine for minors, pending the release of the final guidelines.
Salvaña explained that vaccination even after contracting COVID-19 will lead to hybrid immunity, which is the most durable and effective kind of protection. (PNA)
-ag
