By Christine Fabro
The World Health Organization (WHO) Representative to the Philippines Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinghe observed that the country made progress in its vaccination campaign, but unfortunately, the progress has been “painfully slow.”
“If we really want, we want to protect lives. And if we want to protect lives, we need to use the vaccines that are coming to protect these people,” Abeyasinghe said in a Laging Handa public briefing on Tuesday (Sept. 14).
According to Abeyasinghe, the slow vaccine rollout for the elderly population in the country is a reflection of the inequity of vaccine allocation worldwide.
“We still have nearly 3.6 million elderly people who have not received a single shot [of vaccine]. This is unfortunate and it is unsatisfactory. It’s also a reflection of the inequity that we are seeing globally happening within the country, which we need to correct urgently,” he stated.
Abeyasinghe said the WHO continues to work with the Philippine government to ensure that 40% of the most vulnerable people in the country are fully vaccinated by the end of this year.
He cited the organization’s efforts to provide enough vaccines to protect the 20% of the most vulnerable populations, including the elderlies, through the initiative of COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) Facility.
“I might remind you that the WHO, through the COVAX initiative, agreed to provide enough vaccines to protect 20% of the population – the most vulnerable populations – by the end of this year,” Abeyasinghe said.
“We have already provided 13 million doses. Of those, 3 million doses are single-dose J&J vaccines and 10 million were double-dose vaccines. Those vaccines have been able to fully protect 8 million people already,” he added.
He also announced that the WHO is looking at increasing vaccine allocation to the Philippines.
“We expect much larger consignments to come within this 3rd and 4th quarters to the Philippines and to many other countries who are recipients of COVAX vaccines. We will be mobilizing larger and larger quantities of vaccines so that we achieve that 20% population protection before the end of the year. –rir