Last week, thousands queued outside Manila vaccination centres after rumours spread that people would not be able to leave their homes if they did not get their shots.
The Philippine Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Wednesday (Aug 11) it has approved the emergency use of the Hayat-Vax COVID-19 vaccine manufactured in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The Hayat-Vax vaccine, donated by the UAE, is identical to the Sinopharm vaccine from China, and will be administered to people aged 18 and above, FDA chief Rolando Enrique Domingo told Reuters.
Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine doses that have been donated to the government were approved for emergency use in the Philippines on Jun 7, according to the Philippine news website Rappler.
The Philippines has reported more than 1.68 million infections and more than 29,000 deaths so far during the pandemic, but the number of positive tests has been rising, driving a surge in cases and hospitalisations.
On Wednesday, the Philippine health ministry reported 12,021 new COVID-19 cases, the largest single-day increase in infections in four months. A total of 154 new deaths were also reported, bringing the death toll to 29,734.
The positivity rate rose for a sixth straight day on Tuesday to 21.9 per cent, up from around 15 per cent at the start of August, data from the health ministry showed. The World Health Organization (WHO) says the positivity rate should stay below 5 per cent for a two-week period for an outbreak to be considered under control.
Meanwhile, more hospitals have reported that their intensive care units, isolation beds and wards are nearing full capacity, and some have had to refuse new patients because of a lack of beds and ventilators. Philippine hospitals with occupancy at critical levels rose to 289 on Tuesday from 236 on Sunday, reaching more than a fifth of the country’s 1,290 hospitals, government data showed.
MANILA: Vaccination centres across the Philippine capital Manila are trying to speed up inoculation rates, including by staying open 24 hours, to help combat a sharp rise in COVID-19 infections linked to the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant. W…
