Dealing with vaccine procurement
The UK, United States, Canada, and Israel began their coronavirus immunization program and our neighbors Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam are already starting but the Philippines is still at face masks and shields.
Pfizer-BioNTech has allocated 10 million doses to us to be administered in January but we lost the opportunity because of the so-called dropping and passing the ball among task forces and agencies doing overlapping functions.
Since this is a health concern, give the Department of Health the full responsibility in managing the pandemic.
Vaccines are available but none are immediately available. A delay in immunization for six months will result to a total of 13,500 deaths.
Let the DOH at once enter into contracts – issue emergency use agreements, serve confidentiality disclosure agreements and purchase orders to have vaccines the earliest possible time.
Survey shows that 31 percent of Filipinos are reluctant to be inoculated with vaccines, but confidence among people in vaccination could be built when vaccines are sourced from reputable pharmaceutical companies. — PERCIVAL B. ALIPIT, Baguio City