(File photo of AstraZeneca vaccine courtesy of Anadolu)
CEBU CITY – The Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH-7) will start pulling out AstraZeneca vaccines that are intended to be given as second dose to hospital front-liners and distribute them to other medical facilities within the region to make sure they would be used before the expiration date and not put into waste.
Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, DOH-7 chief pathologist and regional Covid-19 spokesperson, said those vaccines are part of the thousands of doses Manila received from the COVAX Facility that would expire “by end of May” this year.
She said they would use vaccines that would arrive in the next few weeks for the second dose of those who have been inoculated.
“If we will not pull out those vaccine shots and give it to other health care workers that have not been inoculated yet like those who work for the infirmaries, temporary treatment facilities, identified quarantine centers, dialysis centers, free-standing laboratories, and molecular laboratories who also belong to the A1 priority list,” Dr. Mary Jean Loreche said in a briefing at the Visayas Vaccines Operations Center (VVOC) on Thursday.
Loreche said pulling out the vaccines is the best thing to do while these can still be administered, pointing out that “our vaccines are very precious right now (that) we cannot waste even a single dose”.
She said, “We have to be able to dispense of it equitably and at the right time, to the right groups of priority individuals. Instead (of hiding it) for the second dose so we would be able to vaccinate most if not all of our A1 priority-listed healthcare front-liners.”
The DOH official said healthcare workers who have received the first dose of AstraZeneca have the assurance of the national government that they would receive their second dose on time.
Loreche also advised the public to ignore "fake news" circulating that the pullout of AstraZeneca shots is because of a problem in the vaccine itself or reported adverse events following immunization (AEFI).
She explained that although some hospitals and medical facilities that received AstraZeneca reported some AEFI, they were considered as minor side effects similar to other vaccines such as the China-made CoronaVac.
Among the complaints are pain or numbness in the injection site.
The DOH central office said last week it laid out a strategy to ensure that the British-Swede AstraZeneca vaccines will be administered before its May 2021 expiry date. (PNA)
