‘Deport!’: POGO workers injected with smuggled COVID-19 vaccine wanted to be deported

MANILA, Philippines – Foreigners who inject an unregistered vaccine against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) should be punished and sent home to their respective countries, the senator insisted after breaking the law.

This is the call of Sen. Richard Gordon, Wednesday, after it was reported that 100,000 Philippine offshore gaming operators (Pogo) workers – mostly Chinese – had been vaccinated without authorization by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

“There’s a law. They’re foreigners, they come in here, they should [be vaccinated] within what the law requires and if they don’t do that, they’re in violation and they can be deported,” Gordon said. ANC interview.

“And if there’s success, [in the vaccine], I don’t care, they violated the law. As simple as that.”

News of this erupted after civic leader Teresita Ang-See revealed it, while the illegal use of unauthorized vaccines, or any COVID-19 vaccines, is hot inside the Philippines.

Under Republic Act 9711, or FDA Act of 2009, manufacturing, importation, importation, sale, distribution, non-consumer use, etc. are prohibited. of unregistered FDA vaccines.

Despite that, Malacañang is defending the use of unauthorized vaccines by members of the Presidential Security Group, Armed Forces of the Philippines and some Cabinet staff.

“They’ve been violating the law left and right, I have nothing against the Chinese … but when it comes to something that the public is going to use, the law requires that there be testing done by the FDA, certification by the FDA, “Gordon added.

“Any health product must be registered with the FDA before it can be imported, distributed, used and administered. Here they used it, and they administered it and they distributed it, all in violation of the law.”

Under the law, violators of RA 9711 can face imprisonment, in addition to fines. Medical workers are set to get the first 50,000 vaccines from Chinese manufacturer Sinovac, but they still need to get emergency use authorization before being injected. in public.

In this regard, the FDA first said that they could give some small groups “compassionate special permits (CSPs)” to some groups to use drugs such as COVID-19 vaccines.

“[I] f it’s going to be a smaller group po, for example po ‘yung PSG, and of course priority naman po talaga nila na kayo ay proteksyunan, then we can give po compassionate special permit for this kasi maliit lang naman po’ yon and then a hospital can take care of it and a doctor can administer them safely … of the people who will be vaccinated, “said FDA director general Eric Domingo on January 4.

“So for small ano po – small quantities, kahit po wala pang EUA, we can do ano po special permits for that. There’s a way po to ano – to… Naiintindihan naman po natin ‘yung importance po’ no ng what they do and there’s a safe way to do it if they want to. “