Press Release
June 25, 2009

Villar to DOH: Order AH1N1 vaccine now

Nacionalista Party President Senator Manny Villar is urging the Department of Health (DoH) to ensure that the country would have sufficient supply of vaccines for Influenza AH1N1 once these become available in the market.

"As early as now, various countries, particularly the rich ones, are already scrambling to secure their supply of vaccines for AH1N1. They have placed advanced orders to vaccine manufacturers. The DoH should do the same, especially since the number of new cases here has really gone up significantly," said Villar.

Yesterday, the DoH recorded the highest number of Influenza A(H1N1) cases in single day with 131 new cases confirmed, which raised the total count to 604. Although the DOH has assured the public that there is enough stockpile of Oseltamivir--1.2 million capsules or good for 120,000 patients. It has given no details of whether it has placed orders for the vaccines, which will be available in the next few months.

According to Villar, "As the number of Filipinos afflicted with AH1N1 virus continues to increase rapidly, it has become even more important for us to have immediate access to the vaccines when they become available."

As this develops, Villar also commends the pharmaceutical companies which have announced their commitment to donate multi-million doses of AH1N1 vaccine to developing countries to help them cope with the spread of the virus that has been elevated into a pandemic.

"It is really a sign of goodwill for the giant pharmaceutical groups to donate a significant amount of their vaccine output to developing countries. This will really save millions of lives. I hope they will not stop with the one-off donations, but would also set low, affordable or even discounted prices for the vaccine," said Villar.

The move was in response to the call of the World Health Organization (WHO) to vaccine manufacturers to provide poor countries with life-saving vaccines. In their latest report dated June 15, the WHO has reported 35,928 cases and 163 deaths from 76 reporting countries.

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