President Rodrigo Duterte told Filipinos on Monday not to be picky of Covid-19 vaccines and have themselves inoculated with what’s available.
Duterte, who himself had specifically wanted to get inoculated with the unregistered Sinopharm vaccine, said all vaccines were effective and Filipinos should not wait for specific brands.
“Karamihan ‘yong mayroon naghihintay ng mga US: Moderna, Pfizer. Sabi ko hindi mangyari ‘yan…kung ano ang nasa harap ninyo, ke mamilyonaryo ka o mahirap ka, iyon na iyong iyo,” he said.
“Hindi ka mamili. Ang mamili si Secretary (Carlito) Galvez. And Secretary Galvez will make the distribution with a blind eye sa brand,” he added.
Duterte was vaccinated on May 3 with the Sinopharm vaccine, which has yet to be approved for emergency use in the country.
“Kung mahirap ka man o mayaman, kung gusto mo, pumunta ka doon sa vaccination sites. If you are there in that community, go there and have yourselves vaccinated by any of the vaccines available. They are all potent. They are all effective,” he said.
“So there’s no reason for you really to be choosy about it. The only reason is ayaw kong magkaroon ng — magkaroon ng ano ‘yong istorya na may pinapaboran kami na itong ito. Wala,” he added.
The country’s 7,779,050 vaccine-dose stock is composed of five million Sinovac doses, 2,556,000 AstraZeneca doses, 193,050 Pfizer doses and 30,000 Sputnik V doses.
About four million vaccines have been deployed nationwide. John Ezekiel J. Hirro