MANILA, Philippines – Nearly 150,000 doses of various COVID-19 vaccine brands were destroyed in a fire that ravaged the Provincial Health Office of Zamboanga del Sur on Sunday, authorities said in a joint statement on Tuesday.
The National Task Force (NTF) against COVID-19 and the Department of Health (DOH) said a total of 148,678 COVID-10 doses were destroyed in a fire.
Among those lost in the blaze were 88,938 doses of Pfizer vaccine, 36,164 Sinovac jabs, 14,400 Moderna, and 9,176 shots of AstraZeneca.
Routine immunization vaccines allocated for the province were also destroyed in the fire, officials said.
The NTF said the AstraZeneca vaccines were allotted as second doses and were supposed to be deployed on November 3.
The Moderna jabs, meanwhile, were supposed to be used in the rollout of vaccination for minors aged 12 to 17 also set to begin on November 3.
The Pfizer doses were allocated for Pagadian City and temporarily stored at the provincial cold storage facility.
The three-story building, which is occupied by various local government departments, served as the cold chain storage for COVID-19 vaccines for 26 municipalities and one component city in Zamboanga del Sur.
Initial report from the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) stated that the fire broke out in the maintenance area at the ground floor. The fire spread to the building’s third and fourth floors where some of the province’s COVID-19 patients with moderate symptoms were treated.
The patients were temporarily transferred to nearby wards.
The NTF and DOH assured that damaged vaccines will be replenished as soon as a new storage facility is ready for use.
Investigation on the incident is underway.
The post Thousands of COVID-19 vaccine jabs damaged in Zamboanga del Sur fire appeared first on UNTV News.