THE Department of Health (DOH) is already finalizing the guidelines for the use of Sinovac for pediatric vaccination or children 6 years old and above.
During the Laging Handa public briefing, National Vaccination Operations Center (NVOC) chairperson and Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said that the vaccine expert panel is looking intently at the situation because according to the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of Sinovac, the vaccine has to be administered to healthy children.
It means it cannot be given to kids with comorbidities.
Cabotaje said the same formulation of Sinovac vaccines used for adults will be used for the children, unlike Pfizer, where the formulation used for children is much lower.
She added that they are also trying to come up with better messaging that would be much easier to understand by health workers and parents.
Cabotaje explained that with this situation, there is no more need to buy additional Sinovac vaccines or lessen the number of orders for Pfizer vaccines for children. She said that the government has enough supply of Sinovac vaccines that can be administered to kids.
The supply of Pfizer, on the other hand, is only about 15 million doses for 7 million children for them to complete their doses.
This means there is enough supply of vaccines to cover the 15.5 million children if the number of vaccines of the two brands are combined.