The Philippines and South Korea on Friday signed an agreement for a $100-million loan intended to boost the country’s coronavirus disease vaccination program.
In a statement released by the Korean Embassy in the Philippines, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, on behalf of the Philippines, and Country Chief Representative Jaejeong Moon, representing the Export-Import Bank of Korea-Economic Development Cooperation Fund (KEXIM-EDCF) signed the agreement for the second phase of the Program Loan for COVID-19 Emergency Response Program—Vaccination Program (PLCERP II).
“This financial assistance from Korea will go a long way in helping the Duterte administration rev up its mass vaccination program against COVID-19 that is crucial to the strong rebound by our domestic economy come 2022,” Dominguez said.
Korean Ambassador to Manila Kim Inchul said the agreement shows that Seoul is contributing to the country’s efforts to control the COVID-19 pandemic and attain early economic recovery.
According to the International Finance Group of the Department of Finance (DOF-IFG), PLCERP II will help “secure financial sustainability and fill the budgetary gap” in implementing the Department of Health (DOH)’s national COVID-19 vaccination program.
The Philippines has breached the 100 million mark of vaccine doses administered.
As of Dec. 16, the government administered a total of 100,019,137 of COVID-19 vaccine doses nationwide, according to the National Vaccination Operations Center (NVOC).
The NVOC also reported that 55,975,001 first doses have been administered, while 43,029,348 (55.78 percent of target population) were second doses and 1,014,788 were booster shots.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III reported that 953,624 individuals were vaccinated during day 1 of the second round of the National Vaccination Days.
“We hope to be able to inch closer to achieving 54 million with [the] second jab by the end of the year.” Duque said.
The Health secretary warned that the new COVID-19 variant Omicron is more transmissible than the Delta variant, but said that there is still no conclusive data yet on the new variant’s transmissibility.
“You have to understand, even if it is mild, it spreads faster. The chances of our hospital system getting overwhelmed are very, very high when you have more people infected, especially those who are unvaccinated,” Duque said.
He also said the government is well-prepared for the Omicron variant.
Last year amid a surge in cases in July and August, the country was able to bring the cases down despite having no vaccines at the time.
The key, he said, was the people’s compliance with minimum health standards.
Two cases of Omicron had already been detected in the Philippines based on the result of the whole genome sequencing released on Dec. 14.
“The country is readying its borders and local health system for the entry of Omicron [variant] and through the stronger required pre-departure test, facility quarantine, and testing of all allowed arrivals,” said National Task Force Against COVID-19 strategic communications on current operation chief Wilben Mayor.
“The local health system is being readied through continuous active case finding, immediate isolation and testing. We are also making an inventory of our health care facility to ensure we can accommodate any increase in cases,” he added.
Aside from these safeguards, Mayor emphasized the need to observe minimum health standards such as the wearing of face masks, washing of hands, social distancing and getting the COVID-19 jab
“We can see that the answer to fight COVID is through vaccination. And we are happy that vaccines today are coming in a steady phase. We again thank the countries just like the US in facilitating the procurement of these vaccines.”
The DOH said Friday that all COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective.
The assurance was issued after reports of some confusion over the extended shelf life of some vaccines.
The DOH recently announced the expiration date for some Pfizer vaccine doses was extended, and that authorities are in talks with AstraZeneca to prolong the shelf life of some of its jabs, too.
“There is some confusion with the expiration date. All vaccines with emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration remain to be safe and effective,” said Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje.
“We will not give you any vaccine if it is not safe and effective for our program,” she added.
The initial shelf life of vaccines is updated depending on stability data shown by manufacturers, said Cabotaje, who chairs the National Vaccination Operations Center.