ILOILO City – Vaccines with extended shelf life approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are safe and effective.
According to Dr. Bea Camille Natalaray, head of the Department of Health (DOH) Region 6’s Integrated Non-Communicable Diseases Prevention and Control Program Sector, vaccines against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has a shelf life set in their Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) but once this has been reached, DOH can request for an extension.
As part of the process, the manufacturer and vaccine expert panel will look into the stability data of the vaccines.
“They will then pass the data to the FDA, which again will study them. Kun wala man nag iba or if the vaccine remains unchanged, the FDA can amend the EUA extending the shelf life,” Natalaray explained.
The National Vaccination Operation Center (NVOC) will send advisories to local VOCs or implementing units that the vaccines remain unchanged and stable.
LVOCs are advised to quarantine first the vaccines that have already reached their shelf life and wait for the EUA extension approval and the additional guidelines.
“Gina properly label ina,” said Natalaray.
As for unutilized vaccines, “Gina-obrahan incident report kon ngaa wala na-utilize. We are collecting Incident reports regarding this and the NVOC will verify,” said Natalaray.
The regional office has recalled vaccines with no shelf life extension.
“We have those vaccines na. They are considered expired. These vaccines are removed from storage kag properly labeled and be part reverse logistics,” she stressed.
So far, the regional office has no data yet as to how many COVID-19 vaccines have already reached their shelf life and waiting for extension and how many are considered expired already./PN
