President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) to supervise the logistics of Covid-19 vaccine distribution aiming to avoid vaccine wastage.
In a prerecorded address aired on Tuesday morning, the president said he was concerned over the poor transport and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.
“Ang problema ko is ‘yung handling,” he told vaccine czar Carlito Galvez.
“There’s always the time of the essence so there has to be a time frame for that for everything from handling to the transfer. I would insist that the DILG would be part of the supervisory team,” he added.
Galvez also told local government units to appoint security and safety officers to watch over the cold chain storage of the vaccines.
Last week, health authorities in Cotabato reported the spoilage of 348 Sinovac vaccine doses, which had been kept in a freezer that was powered off for two days.
Galvez said the designation of security and safety officers would prevent events of spoilage from happening.
Sinovac vaccines must be stored at about 2 to 8°C.
The Philippines has received about 7.8 million Covid-19 vaccines, of which more than three million have already been administered. John Ezekiel J. Hirro