Philippine health officials are adopting a "brand agnostic" approach in the country's vaccine rollout.
The Philippine Health Department announced local governments will no longer be allowed to announce beforehand what vaccines they will be administering.
The announcement was made after one vaccination site in the country's capital city of Manila was inundated after people found out that it was giving out Pfizer's vaccine.
"What we're going to enforce now is brand agnostic. From now on, only people already in line at a vaccination site will be told which shot they'll get and "if they do not like the vaccines that are given during that time, then they go to the end of the line," Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said.
Earlier in the week, one vaccination site in Manila was swamped with people, who had been waiting outside the Manila Prince Hotel from as early as 2 a.m. Residents crowded to the site after hearing it was giving out 900 Pfizer vaccines.
Manila City Mayor Isko Moreno said most people prefer the Pfizer vaccine, which is why most people had chosen to line up at this site instead of the other nearly 20 vaccination centers in the city.
Most of the doses being used in the nation's campaign are China's Sinovac vaccine, which has a reported efficacy of 67%. The country currently has around 200,000 doses of Pfizer's vaccine, which has an estimated efficacy rate of 95%.
Since it started its campaign, the Philippines has acquired seven different vaccine brands. The country has the second-highest coronavirus infection rate in Southeast Asia. Despite its access to several vaccines the rollout has been slow with less than 1% only of the nation's 108 million-strong population having received a second dose.
Health experts said people were reluctant to receive vaccines owing to rampant misinformation and bad experiences with a 2016 dengue fever vaccine - which put a lot of children in danger. In a survey conducted by Pulse Asia, about six in 10 Filipinos said they don't want to get vaccinated.
