It was announced by the interim National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NITAG) on Friday that it was recommending the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Chinese drug manufacturer Sinovac for use of health workers. This was despite the earlier reservations made by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
On Monday, the much-anticipated emergency use authorization was granted to Sinovac by the FDA. However, it was also said that the vaccine may not be suitable for health workers directly exposed to COVID-19 patients because of its 50.4% efficacy rating in a study conducted in Brazil.
This prompted the consulation with NITAG by the DOH for advice on how to distribute the vaccine given its lower efficacy among health workers and the current prioritization framework of the government.
“The DOH, the Food and Drug Administration and our panel of experts concurred that current available evidence is enough to establish that the vaccine is safe for use,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said during a briefing on Friday.
“NITAG and the TAG (technical advisory group) has deemed it sufficient to recommend the use of the vaccine for health care workers as it bears to reiterate that our goal for prioritizing health care workers for vaccination is to reduce morbidity and mortality among their group, while they maintain the most critical essential health services,” she added.
According to Vergeire, the NITAG already presented the recommendation to the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on COVID-19 response.
“Just this morning we presented to the IATF and we got approval already. This will also be presented to the President,” she said.
