MANILA - Only 8 percent of Philippine General Hospital frontliners want to receive Chinese vaccine CoronaVac as its staff await the results of a Department of Health panel assessment, the hospital's spokesperson said Monday.

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PGH spokesperson Jonas del Rosario said the DOH's Health Technology Assessment Council (HTAC) was expected to release its recommendation on the use of Sinovac's vaccine on Monday evening.

The hospital received CoronaVac doses at around 2 a.m. Monday, he added.

"We’re expecting kung positive 'yung recommendation baka po mas marami pa pong magpavaccinate po," he told ABS-CBN's Teleradyo.

(If the recommendation is positive, we're expecting more healthworkers will want to get vaccinated.)

Medical groups earlier criticized health officials' supposed "double standards" in recommending Sinovac's shots to medical workers not directly handling COVID-19 patients, saying the vaccine should not at all be used on them.

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Some 94 percent of the hospital's frontline workers earlier said they would like to get vaccinated with Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 jab, according to Del Rosario.

The US' vaccine candidate was expected to arrive in the Philippines last month but was delayed due to an absence of an indemnification agreement, officials earlier said.

Del Rosario, who contracted the coronavirus last year, said he would skip the Chinese vaccine as no studies had been done if it can be used on former COVID-19 patients.

"Ang advise po sakin ay I can wait dahil wala pa pong study na ang Sinovac ay naibigay na sa nagka-COVID," he said.

(I was advised that I can wait because there's no study yet that Sinovac's vaccine can be given to those who contracted COVID.)

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