50-M Covid vax doses wasted

The country's COVID-19 vaccine wastage has reached nearly 50 million doses as of November, Senator Pia Cayetano said Wednesday.

Cayetano, who defended the Department

of Health's proposed P353.2-billion budget for next year, revealed this during Tuesday's resumption of the Senate marathon plenary debates until early Wednesday morning.

"The wastage of the Covid vaccines is 49.730 million doses," she said, reading from the DoH's statement.

She made the disclosure after Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III inquired about the vaccine wastage.

Citing data from the department, Cayetano noted that 26.2 million of the total expired Covid-19 vaccines came from various donations abroad, while the remaining 23.7 million doses were government procured.

Of the 49.730 million wasted doses, she said 38.54 million doses expired due to its short lifespan.

"We'd like to emphasize that the shelf life of Covid vaccines was really short. It was only six months, and then the donation was three months. There were those with only one month shelf life," she said.

Since the national government rolled out its Covid-19 vaccine program in 2021, the Philippines has procured a total of 155 million doses and received 95.9 million doses of donated vaccines.