Vax guarantees life without Flirt
‘Budget allocations for Covid-19 vaccinations are made based on an assessment of public health needs.‘
Daily Tribune‘Budget allocations for Covid-19 vaccinations are made based on an assessment of public health needs.‘
The Department of Health (DoH) said the Philippines may need new vaccines to counter the emergence of the new Covid-19 variants under monitoring — KP.2 and K.3 or FLiRT.
The DoH issued the statement after Philippine College of Physicians and infectious disease expert Dr. Rontgene Solante said the previous Covid-19 vaccines manufactured in the country could no longer give much protection against these new virus strains.
“The specialist is correct in that immunity from the original primary series and boosters wanes over time, but is not lost,” DoH Assistant Secretary and spokesperson Albert Domingo told reporters Friday night.
Residual immunity detected
“There may be some degree of residual immunity left which is still better than having not been vaccinated at all,” Domingo said.
Solante said there are reformulated and updated vaccines but they are not currently available in the country.
However, Domingo assured that the DoH is aware that the immunity “will not stay forever,” so it is encouraging the Food and Drug Administration to accept applications for the registration of newer Covid-19 vaccines so these be made available.
This year, DoH has no budget to procure Covid-19 vaccines after the government lifted the public emergency over Covid-19.
“Budget allocations for Covid-19 vaccinations are made based on an assessment of public health needs,” Domingo said.
“In situations where the case severity is low or mild only, as is observed with the KP.2 and KP.3 variants per international WHO reports and local data on hospital occupancies, there may not be an urgent need to budget and procure as before,” he added.
The World Health Organization on 17 May listed new variants under monitoring (VUM): JN.1.18, KP.2, and KP.3. All of these are descendants of JN.1.
FLiRT is a nickname coined by some researchers to describe amino acid changes in the Covid- 19 virus’ spike protein, specifically from phenylalanine (F) to leucine (L) at position 456, and from arginine (R) to threonine (T) at position 346.
