It is inevitable and predictable that soon enough, a COVID19 vaccine will be made available for the Filipino people.
No vaccine is 100% safe and 100% efficacious. But the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ensures that the benefits of a vaccine always far outweighs the risks when licensing vaccines for public use.
It is imperative that this vaccine be the safest, most effective vaccine that the country can afford and could be distributed and administered in a way that the most number can benefit from, with particular emphasis on the most vulnerable and underserved.
But this is NOT government’s task alone.
The scientists, academicians, medical and civil societies, industry and media need to have a continuing and sustainable program, with all citizens coordinating with public health people to disseminate the true nature and value of vaccines in modern society.
This program should communicate effectively the role played by vaccines and how vaccination can save lives and improve not just the health but the wealth and well being of the people. The time for misinformation, disinformation and fake news about vaccines should now be permanently closed to save us from further disasters and loss of lives.
Let this generation transition and transform the country into a thriving healthy economy that every Filipino truly deserves.
In Vaccines, we trust.
Dr. Lulu Bravo
Dr. Lulu Bravo is a Professor Emeritus at the College of Medicine, University of the Philippines Manila. She is the former Vice Chancellor for Research and Executive Director of the National Institutes of Health, University of the Philippines Manila (2005–2011) and current head of the Vaccine Study Group of the NIH–UPM. She is the founding President and current Executive Director of the Philippine Foundation for Vaccination (PFV)
Dr. Fatima Ignacio-Gimenez
Dr. Fatima Ignacio Gimenez is the Vice-President of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society of the Philippines (PIDSP). A Bachelor of Science in Public Health graduate from UP Manila, she acquired her Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center (UERMMMC). Dr. Gimenez took her residency in Pediatrics at the Medical City and her Fellowship Training in Infectious Disease at the Philippine Children`s Medical Center (PCMC), where she is currently the Training Officer.
