05 December 2024

The Department of Health (DOH) thanks the Commission on Audit (COA) for its work to promote transparency, accountability, and good governance in the management of public funds and property. Further to what has been stated in their Annual Audit Report for CY 2023 concerning the Department, we offer to the Filipino public the following context for certain findings:

The COVID-19 vaccination exercise did not have the benefit of years of planning and preparation, like other routine and established vaccination programs. It was an emergency, a matter of life and death. Similar to many governments worldwide, the Philippine government, through the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) decided to have more COVID-19 vaccines available for all Filipinos at the soonest possible time, than none at all. Even as the national government advised all concerned that it would be procuring for all Filipinos, some local government units and private sector entities insisted on procuring their own vaccines. As more and more doses arrived from the triple procurement efforts, there were even donations that came from the COVAX facility and from bilateral channels (i.e., country to country).

In April 2022, the international scientific community already pointed to COVID-19 vaccine wastage rates of up to 30%. For example, data as of October 2021 show that Australia had up to 7 million COVID-19 vaccines wasted due to expiration and being “unwanted” (1). Researchers pointed out an imbalance between supply and demand for these vaccines that were much needed in a time of global emergency. In the first few months of vaccine discovery, manufacturers raced to mass produce. Then, as supply no longer was an issue around 2021-2022, population demand went down sharply. The mild but highly transmissible Omicron variant strengthened herd immunity through natural infection, so less people experienced critical symptoms. The public started seeing COVID-19 as similar to seasonal influenza, so more vaccinated people decided not to receive a booster shot. (2)

It should be noted that in the same 2023 Annual Audit Report cited, the COA acknowledged that there is a DOH Disposal Committee working on the remaining expired vaccines stored at the DOH warehouses. COA understands that “there may be no other resolution but to dispose the expired vaccines since no extension was granted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).” Once disposal is completed following standard Manuals on the Disposal of Government Property, the results shall be relayed to COA.

We also thank the COA for acknowledging that the DOH Health Emergency Management Bureau (HEMB) now has guidelines on the management of logistics for use during emergencies/disasters, particularly for the proper storage conditions on health commodities considering their shelf life, to avoid wastage. Other operating units within the DOH have also designed and implemented similar strategies to minimize or avoid wastage in the future.