CLARK, Pampanga: President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Thursday said THE PHILIPPINES WILL fiND A BOOSTER THAT targets a more transmissible Omicron variant, as he admitted the country is not yet at the “tail end” of the pandemic.

In his speech during the 15th Philippine National Health Research System Week celebration here, Marcos stressed the need to boost the people’s immunity against new Omicron variants that are again causing a surge in cases.

“Here we come again with a new variant that we have to deal with, that you have to genome sequence again, that we have to find a booster so that the people are fully immunized,” he added.

Vaccine manufacturers Pfizer and Moderna recently announced the availability of bivalent boosters, which can target both the original ancestral virus strain and elements of the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 variants.

Recent samples from the genome sequencing run conducted by the Philippine Genome Center were mostly of the BA.5 strain.

BA.5, one of the Omicron sublineages that originated in South Africa, has shown a potential to break through immunity, initial studies showed. It was also found to be about 30 percent more transmissible than earlier Covid-19 strains.

“So we must really be very wary of getting fixed and say this is what it is. Because we know, it evolves, it mutates. And after a couple of months, it is not what it is any longer. And that’s why the openness of mind, the continuing flow of information between all of the different agencies has become crucial, has become critical, and has been again the key to what successes that you have enjoyed,” Marcos said.

“The health crisis we have confronted has exposed how vulnerable we are as a people and this pushed us to devise efficient responses and the mechanisms given what resources that we had. That is why I believe we continue to remain open to these new ideas and commit to work together. We can resolve these issues by employing crosssectoral responsive evidencebased systems. Now, there’s a very important idea. You are all scientists. Evidence-based system. There is no such thing as a failed experiment because in every experiment you learn something,” he added.

On Wednesday, Go Negosyo founder Jose Maria “Joey” Concepcion 3rd said that the private sector is looking at booster shots that can address new variants of Covid-19.

“We are looking at the bivalent boosters, but this may be possible toward the latter part of 2022,” Concepcion said in a statement.

“This would be much better for the third boosters because it offers much more protection,” he added.

The Department of Health (DoH) said that it will consider procuring bivalent Covid-19 vaccines as long as studies find sufficient evidence about their effectiveness.

“We are always open to new technologies. When evidence says that the reformulated vaccines will be more beneficial to the population, we will [push] for it,” DoH Officer in Charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said.

But Vergeire emphasized that the regulatory-approved vaccines with their current formulation remain effective against the different variants and subvariants detected in the country.

“Based on studies and experts’ recommendations, the primary series and boosters that we are administering can still fight [the virus]. Our vaccines’ current formulation is [still effective],” she said.