ALBERTO ALCAIN/ PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO
President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday night mockingly offered Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines to senators who were advocating for their procurement after reports of old people in Norway dying post-vaccination.
“Gusto ninyong Pfizer, kayong mga senador, in Norway, 25 persons died after receiving Pfizer vaccination. Gusto ninyo? Mag-order kami para sa inyo,” he said in a televised address.
According to a Bloomberg report, Norwegian Medicines Agency (NMA) has recorded 33 deaths among people aged 75 and older after receiving Pfizer shots. However, the agency noted that all were already seriously ill.
Steinar Madsen, NMA medical director, said a connection between the Pfizer vaccines and the deaths was difficult to prove, as the deaths were less than 1 out of 1,000 nursing-home patents vaccinated.
But it cannot be ruled out that in some cases, the vaccines had “tip[ped] the patients into a more serious course of the underlying disease,” added Madsen.
Pfizer is the lone agency to have secured an emergency use authorization (EUA) in the Philippines for its vaccines.
The country has yet to sign a deal with Pfizer, but vaccine czar Carlito Galvez, Jr. earlier said officials were “negotiating for more or less 40 million doses” from the American firm. John Ezekiel J. Hirro