
A report by the Commission on Audit has flagged the government’s P74.68 million COVID-19 National Vaccination Program (CNVP), implemented from 2021 to 2022, for high vaccine wastage but low vaccination and booster rates.
The COA, in a report uploaded on its website in December, stated that its analysis of the data from the Department of Health showed that a total of 251,774,460 doses of COVID-19 vaccines were procured by and donated to the government as of September 8, 2023. However, 27.28 percent, or 68,681,445 doses, were already reported as ‘wastage’ as of November 30, 2024.
The wastage exceeded the limit set by the international health organization Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations, which recommended that a country must aim to limit its vaccine wastage to 25 percent in the first year of the vaccination program’s implementation and reduce it to 15 percent in the third year.
The COA said that of the 68.6M wasted vaccines, 36.9M or 53.8 percent came from donations while 17.1M doses or 24.9 percent were procured by the national government. It also noted that 6M were wasted by local government units and 4.3M by private organizations. The remaining 4M that was wasted was not indicated in the DOH data.
The figures are far higher than the 7,035,161 vials of COVID-19 vaccines that were earlier reported as wasted in the COA’s annual audit report on the DOH for 2023.
The COA said among the reasons cited by the DOH for the high vaccine wastage were refusal of several LGUs to accept vaccine deliveries due to the short remaining shelf life, slow movement, and late arrival into the country of the vaccines.
The need for COVID-19 vaccines was desperate then, and to be fair to our government, it scrambled to get its hands on as many jabs as possible. For that, the officials responsible deserve praise. However, the high vaccine wastage, coupled with low vaccination and booster rates, prove that getting the jabs in the country is one thing, making use of them properly is another. That inability to deploy the vaccines we asked for is a stain on our record, and will make procuring such emergency items difficult in the future. In addition, that is a capability that we have to develop if our country is going to be prepared for future pandemics.*