By Red
Mendoza March 30, 2021
AS local government units start vaccinating
senior citizens and people with comorbidities, the Department of Health (DoH)
released an initial list of diseases that qualify those who have it to be given
vaccine priority.
These include chronic respiratory disease,
hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney diseases, cancer,
diabetes, and obesity.
But the Inter-Agency Task Force for the
Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) will have to approve the
list before it can be adopted.
Those with comorbidities should bring a
medical certificate, medical abstract or a prescription issued within the past
six months to the vaccination center.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire.
Screengrab from DOH Beat COVID-19 Press Conference
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire
said with the increasing number of virus cases in the country, it is imperative
for the IATF-EID to allow senior citizens and those with comorbidities to be
vaccinated alongside frontline health care workers.
The simultaneous vaccination of senior
citizens and those with controlled comorbidities will prevent them from getting
severe coronavirus, according to a member of the technical working group (TWG)
of the IATF-EID.
Citing data from last year, IATF-EID’s TWG
consultant Dr. John Wong said that while elderly people were 15 percent less
likely to be infected, they were five to ten times more likely to have severe
disease and die.
“It is very important to vaccinate them as
soon as possible to prevent them [from being hospitalized],” Wong said.
He added that the vaccination of people with
controlled comorbidities will relieve the pressure on the health system.
Vergeire said the subprioritization of patients
with the seven identified pre-existing conditions was due to the scarcity of
vaccines.
“Naiintindihan po natin na maraming sakit ang
saklaw ng may comorbidities, pero ang ginagawa po natin ngayon (We understand
that there are many pre-existing conditions that can be considered as
co-morbidities, but what we are doing right now) is science and evidence-based
to rationally allocate these vaccines,” she continued.
Senior citizens will be given the AstraZeneca
AZD1222 vaccine, while comorbidities will be inoculated with the Coronavac
vaccine from Sinovac Biotech Ltd.
There are an estimated nine million senior
citizens and around 14.1 million Filipinos with comorbidities who are eligible
for vaccination.
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