The Philippine government has rolled out the booster shots for medical frontliners on Wednesday, November 17.
The Food and Drug Administration has recommended getting either Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca or Sinovac vaccine brands for booster doses “regardless of the brand used for the primary series”.
Meanwhile, the Department of Health (DOH) stated: “Vector-based vaccines like AstraZeneca are recommended to be boosted with a different vaccine platform, due to theoretical possibility of pre-existing immunity attenuating or weakening the immune response on the 2nd or third dose.”
The DOH also advised vaccine recipients with previous history of adverse reactions after administration of COVID-19 vaccine to consult their attending physician for the recommended boosting strategy.
Some 2.6 million medical frontliners and members of their household have been fully vaccinated as of Monday.
The Philippines has so far fully vaccinated 31.8 million of its 109 million population.
