MANILA (Reuters) – According to a rumor circulating in the Philippines, the coronavirus vaccine will enable President Rodrigo Duterte to kill people at the touch of a button.
Elsewhere in the country of 108 million residents, memories of a locally banned dengue vaccine put people off the idea of immunization even before the campaign begins.
“Many children got sick after receiving that vaccine,” said 62-year-old Crisanta Alipio of the fateful vaccine against dengue, a mosquito-borne disease that can be deadly.
She said she was afraid of the new coronavirus, but even more afraid of vaccination.
The Philippines will begin vaccinations next month, despite the second worst coronavirus outbreak in Southeast Asia with more than half a million infections and more than 10,000 deaths.
But officials acknowledge that they are having an uphill battle to convince many people to take it, in addition to the logistical difficulties of reaching 2,000 inhabited islands with an uncertain health system in the Southeast Asian archipelago.
“Messages must be very concrete and evidence-based to encourage people to receive the vaccines,” said Secretary of State Rosario Vergeire of the Ministry of Health.
“We assure Filipinos that all vaccines that will be brought in and dispensed will go through a strict regulatory process.”
Figure: Routine Immunization Coverage in the Philippines, 2015-2020:
DENGVAXIA SCARE
Confidence in vaccines was shattered by the controversy over the French company Sanofi’s Dengvaxia.
Rapidly rolled out in 2016 to more than 800,000 children to protect them from dengue – it was banned after its maker said it could worsen the disease in people who had not previously been exposed to the infection.
That led to two congressional investigations and more than 100 criminal cases linking infant mortality to the anti-dengue injection – although no such links have ever been proven.
Sanofi has said repeatedly that Dengvaxia is safe and effective and that the vaccine has been approved for use by the United States and the European Union.
After that episode, the Philippines dropped from one of the top 10 countries for vaccine confidence to no higher than 70th place. The number of fully vaccinated children has decreased from 85% in 2010 to 69% in 2019.
To allay fears, health workers held town hall and online meetings and received special training on how to answer questions, Carlito Galvez, a former army general who led the anti-COVID-19 campaign, told the Senate.
The goal is to inoculate 70 million adults this year.
‘BIG PROBLEM’
In parts of the southern Philippines, the great fear of a state-sponsored death campaign – not quite far-fetched in a country where Duterte’s drug war has left nearly 6,000,000 dead since taking office in 2016.
Remote southern regions are the scene of both communist and Islamist uprisings.
Some information shared on Facebook and text messages said the COVID-19 vaccine contained a microchip that could be remotely controlled by President Duterte, and once he presses a button, the person who received the vaccine will , die, ”said Nasser Alimoda, a government physician in Lanao del Sur province.
There is concern everywhere about the specific vaccines that the Philippines also plans to use – particularly the vaccine from Chinese company Sinovac Biotech, for which one study showed an effectiveness of just over 50%, while another study showed more than 91% gave.
An opinion poll showed that less than a third of Filipinos were willing to get vaccinated against the corona virus.
“Vaccination programs will be lost if people refuse to receive the shot,” a former health minister, Esperanza Cabral, told Reuters.
Apasrah Mapupuno, the head of the government’s Lanao del Sur health team, said she had asked dozens of health workers and others to roll up their sleeves for a COVID-19 vaccine.
Nobody said ‘yes’.
“That’s the big problem,” said Mapupuno. “How can the health workers convince the community to get vaccinated if they aren’t sold on COVID-19 vaccines themselves?”
Adaptation by Matthew Tostevin, Robert Birsel