300 COVID-19 Vaccines Burned In Misamis Oriental Fire
COVID-19 VACCINES BURNED IN FIRE – The Department of Health unfortunately announced that more than 300 coronavirus vaccines were engulfed in a fire.
On Wednesday, a fire broke out at the provincial health office of Misamis Oriental in Cagayan de Oro. Initially, reports said that 50 vials of Sinovac were damaged because of the blaze.
However, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that there were actually 30 vials that could’ve inoculated 300 people. According to an article from ABS-CBN, the Health Undersecretary said:
“Most probably wasted. Dahil nagkaroon ng sunog, temperature was high hindi na natin iri-risk na titignan pa at gamitin ang bakuna dahil nagbago na ang temperatura kung sakali. Not unless, the storage of the vaccines or ‘yung ref nila is malayo sa pinangyarihan ng sunog“
Both Sinovac and AstraZeneca vaccines need to be stored in temperatures of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius. Following the incident, Vergeire said such accidents are ones they do not wish to happen, especially amid the pandemic.
But, Vergeire said that the government was already expecting a scenario such as this. As such, he emphasized that this would not affect the government’s immunization programs.
Currently, the Philippines has administered over 1.2 million coronavirus vaccines a month after its initial rollout. However, this is still leagues away from the government’s target of 70 million by the end of the year to reach “herd immunity”.
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