THE Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday said the Philippines can achieve the herd immunity by first quarter of 2022, but the threat of the Covid-19 will last for a year or two.
In a budget briefing on the DOH’s P242.22-billion budget for 2022, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said with 500,000 to 600,000 vaccine doses administered daily, the country can attain herd immunity by February of 2021.
“Supply permitting and assuming that there will be about 500,000 to 600,000 doses jabbed per day, the conservative estimate is, we might be able to achieve herd immunity by second month of the first quarter of 2022,” Duque said.
Citing latest data, Duque said the Philippines is expected to receive 195 million Covid-19 vaccines by end of 2021.
“The latest data we have…the Department of Finance has reported to the President that 195 million doses are expected to arrive by end of this year,” he said.
He said the excess of these vaccines can be given to other sectors of the population who are not identified in the vaccination program.
“Having said that, it will exceed our herd immunity target of 77 million Filipinos, about 70 percent of the population, so we are confident that excess doses will be sufficient to cover those not belonging to the herd immunity population as identified,” he said.
Citing the World Health Organization and other health experts, Duque said this threat of Covid-19 could last for a year or two.
Booster shot
Meanwhile, Duque said the DOH is still awaiting for a report on the Covid-19 booster shot.
Duque explained that it was the DBM’s decision to place the Covid-19 booster program under the unprogrammed funds pending the approval of the government’s technical panel on the use of Covid-19 booster shots.
“We are awaiting, hopefully, by next week we will get the full technical report from our expert groups and vaccine expert panel on the use of booster doses. It will not take too much time for the DOH and IATF to get hold of this technical report. if they approve the booster, we will present again [the budget] to the DBM [Department of Budget and Management],” said the secretary.
Earlier, lawmakers questioned the DOH’s budget proposal for next year, particularly the categorization of the P45-billion Covid-19 booster program under unprogrammed funds.
Duque said that they have proposed a P104-billion Covid-19 booster budget, but DBM slashed the proposal to P45 billion and placed it under unprogrammed funds.