MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Health (DOH) will repurpose the P152.12-million worth of vaccine freezers the government procured during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some will be used at research laboratories such as the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine and the San Lazaro Hospital, which requires cold storage for vaccines and biological samples. Meanwhile, some freezers will be recalibrated to store temperature-controlled cancer drugs and other polymerase chain reaction detection kits.
The DOH said other freezers may be used for the emergency deployment of vaccines.
This comes after the Commission on Audit flagged the department as it had yet to create continuity plans for the 243 ultra-low temperature freezers (ULFs) procured to store COVID-19 vaccines.
“Considering that most developing countries have limited ultra-cold chain infrastructure, countries are encouraged to draft a transition plan which provides insight into how this ultra-cold chain capacity will be utilized — even outside of the Expanded Program on Immunization — to mitigate the risk of the equipment being earmarked only for immunization and end up being underutilized,” the commission said in a 222-page audit report in December 23, 2024.
In mid-2024, the DOH reported that 26 freezers are either already defective or not working and another 19 units were not operational but still in good condition.
Meanwhile, there are 224 freezers that work and are still in good condition.
The freezers have 26.48 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from different brands stored as of July 31, 2024. These do not include the additional doses the country got from the donations of international organizations late last year.
“Without additional procurement of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines and after inoculation of the donation from GAVI is approved, the 19 ULFs will remain unused, as well as those that will be turned off once the remaining quarantined doses are disposed of,” COA said.
The freezers are supposed to have a 10-year life span but when left idle, they run the risk of deterioration.– Rappler.com