Exploring the essential need for developing COVID-19 vaccines in the Philippines.

Abstract

I am interested in the recent article published in this journal regarding the experience of developing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines in Iran. The authors appropriately presented the necessity of widespread public vaccination during health crises. They emphasized that vaccine development was a complex process that requires firm-level capabilities, various infrastructures, long-term planning, and stable and efficient policies [1]. In this regard, the Philippines can learn from the vaccine development experience of Iran since both are categorized as developing countries. At the same time, the government has finally started planning to establish its vaccine development plan to address the shortage/unavailability of vaccines and vaccine hesitancy among local citizens. In the current data reported to the World Health Organization, there have been 4,076,237 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 66,108 deaths from 3 January 2020 to 28 February 2023. These alarming figures could have been prevented, especially the number of deaths if the first dose of vaccines had arrived earlier or had been available during the first months of the pandemic. Unfortunately, the first tranche of CoronaVac vaccine doses from China’s Sinovac Biotech arrived after almost a year, in February 2021, making it one of the last countries in Southeast Asia to start vaccinating its residents [2]. In the same way, even if vaccines were already available, many locals are hesitant to get inoculated due to several reasons and myths, such as the life span of those who are vaccinated is shortened; vaccines are viewed as unnecessary and insufficient to prevent disease; the young ones do not need the vaccines, but only those at high risk, especially the elderly and persons with comorbidities; the vaccine can give you COVID-19 since it contains the virus; the vaccine can cause infertility among women, persons with an allergy should not get the vaccine, and other participants cited that other countries did not recognize a specific brand. Thus, they are ineffective [3,4]. If vaccines are locally manufactured and explained well in Filipino culture and tradition, then there is the possibility of more acceptance and addressing the hesitancy. Just like in Iran, where the development of the COVID-19 vaccine was accelerated due to simultaneous cooperation and competition of various research centers/companies, and there was enough government financial/regulatory support [1], these same factors must also be given priority in the Philippines. It is good that several research centers have started to work hard for its cause, like the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development, the National Institutes of Health, and the Re© Korean Vaccine Society. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. K O R E A N V A C C I N E S O C I E T Y