Pandemic managers raised the urgency of the compensation law only in February: senators

MANILA, Philippines – It was already February when the government’s pandemic administrators first informed the Senate of the urgent need for a compensation law, yet used the lack of it as an excuse for the country’s long wait for vaccines. against the coronavirus, the Inquirer learned on Tuesday.

Three senators said COVID-19 managers never raised the urgency of the no-fault clause until this month, when the first batch of vaccines was supposed to have already arrived, despite publicly available documents indicating it was a requirement. .

No sense of urgency

The delay was just the latest in a series of costly mistakes made by the government’s COVID-19 planners, as a result of their “gradual focus” on vaccine procurement, according to Sen. Nancy Binay, who pointed to earlier mistakes related to the country’s handling of non-disclosure agreements with drug manufacturers and cold chain requirements, among other things.

“Either they had no idea of ​​the necessary requirements or they just didn’t have a sense of urgency,” Binay said in a statement to the Inquirer.

Senator Francis Pangilinan told the Inquirer that Health Secretary Francisco Duque III raised the issue of compensation during the Senate committee on all hearings last December.

“But at the time it was not presented as a necessary or indispensable prerequisite for the purchase of vaccines,” said Pangilinan.

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said it was “only very recently” that senators were told that the country needed an indemnity law to obtain vaccines.

“Why did you take the [Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases] so long to ask Congress to pass a severance bill, or submit the severance agreement to

COVAX? “he said, referring to the global vaccine group led by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the GAVI vaccine alliance.

“Now I ask: Did someone drop the ball again?” Drilon said in a statement to the Inquirer.

The no-fault or indemnification clause is a requirement for vaccine supply agreements established by

COVAX and other multinational pharmaceutical companies.

The Philippines, which has the second highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in Southeast Asia, has not signed any contracts to supply COVID-19 vaccines.

Duque declined Tuesday to comment on COVAX requirements and referred the matter to Secretary Carlito Gálvez Jr., head of the national vaccination program, “since he was the one leading the negotiations.”

There was no immediate response from Gálvez, who was still in a meeting Tuesday night, according to a member of his staff.

Available online

By the last quarter of 2020, the Inquirer found that COVAX documents were already available online stating how all parties were supposed to hold manufacturers harmless in the event of harmful side effects of vaccination.

An October 2020 document from UNICEF, a COVAX partner, said that “all participants who are assigned vaccines through COVAX will have to compensate the manufacturer for the vaccines deployed in their territory.”

“The lack of such compensation will limit / delay access to vaccines,” he added.

Another document released by the Asian Development Bank last December said that GAVI was negotiating “a model indemnity agreement that will be incorporated into agreements with manufacturers and will require all participating COVAX countries to compensate the manufacturer for vaccines deployed in his country”.

But not once, through various congressional investigations in November and December of last year, did Gálvez expressly ask the Senate for a severance bill.

Delayed delivery from Pfizer

In fact, the first Senate bill that would create a severance fund, introduced by Binay on January 25, did not mention any request from the COVID-19 task force to exempt manufacturers from liability due to harmful side effects of vaccination.

Neither did the second, introduced by Senator Ramón Revilla Jr. on January 26.

It was only the third bill, drafted by Senate President Vicente Sotto III and introduced on February 16, that described the no-fault clause as “one of the requirements of the vaccine manufacturers.”

That was only after Gálvez told the Senate on February 11 that it was the lack of an indemnity law in the country that led to the delay in the arrival of the first batch of 117,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine purchased through COVAX. .

“If we had an indemnity law, Pfizer [vaccines] It would have arrived on February 12, ”Gálvez told the senators.

Sotto, in a message to the Inquirer, confirmed that Gálvez did not ask the Senate for a bill for compensation. But that was “because Pfizer didn’t say it at first,” the Senate leader said.

Binay, however, said that COVID-19 planners appeared to have been unaware of the urgency of the no-fault requirement.

“If we are truly serious about solving a public health problem at the pandemic level, we must never sacrifice the urgent for the important. [The] The government has to act immediately to manage the priorities when it comes to the COVID response, ”he said.

Drilon said: “By all indications, COVID-19 managers have mismanaged the procurement of coronavirus vaccines in the same way that the government mismanaged the pandemic.”

Executive power

What is puzzling, he said, is that President Duterte’s executive power is sufficient to meet the requirement.

“The recent submission by the government of severance agreements with COVAX is proof that the government can exempt manufacturers and hold them free from liability, except in cases of gross negligence and willful misconduct, without going to Congress,” said Drilon. .

The president “has full power to force the country,” he said.

However, the Senate on Tuesday approved a bill that accelerates the acquisition of vaccines with a special provision for a compensation fund of 500 million pesos. This is independent of the autonomous measures presented by Binay, Revilla and Sotto, which are still pending in committee. (See related article on page A6). Health experts pointed out that the COVAX requirements were the same for all countries and that they had been known since November last year, casting doubt on the claim of government vaccine administrators that they were aware of the compensation. deal only recently.

“We just didn’t do a vaccination checklist, so we dropped the ball again,” said Dr. Tony Leachon, a health advocate and former adviser on the government’s response to coronavirus.

Blatant lies. COVAX requirements are the same all over the world [and] already published in [the] GAVI website, ”said Dr. Gene Nisperos of the Community Medicine Development Foundation.

Nisperos said the Philippines was not being singled out, as officials had hinted, and hit the government for “simply making excuses” for not doing due diligence.

Gálvez, as well as presidential spokesman Harry Roque, had said manufacturers were wary of supplying vaccines to the Philippines due to demand faced by another pharmaceutical company, Sanofi Pasteur, due to the 2018 Dengvaxia controversy.

‘Obligation of manufacturers’

When asked Tuesday if Duterte held anyone responsible for the delay in delivering the vaccine, Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said the president knew the matter was in the hands of the manufacturers.

The government is doing everything it can to meet the requirements, he said.

“But at the end of the day, it’s really the vaccine manufacturers’ obligation, the responsibility to ship it to us. [the] time that was promised, “said Nograles at a press conference.

AstraZeneca vaccine delivery dates will be decided this week, Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinghe, WHO Representative in the Philippines, said Tuesday at a news conference at the Department of Health.

The Philippines has met all the requirements for the vaccines it is qualified to receive from COVAX, Abeyasinghe said.

“I understand that there is no requirement in the AstraZeneca case for further letter exchange, so we are optimistic that before the end of this week we will hear from the

COVAX Initiative on Likely Delivery Dates for AstraZeneca Vaccines to the Philippines, ”he said.

Abeyasinghe confirmed that between 5.5 and 9.2 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine had been destined for the Philippines.

—WITH REPORTS FROM LEILA B. SALAVERRIA, PATRICIA DENISE M. CHIU AND MARICAR CINCO

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