Southeast Asia’s rich and powerful grab Covid-19 booster shots before many have had first jab
- The growing trend in countries such as Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines is worsening inequities amid vaccine shortages
- Extra doses for the well-connected means fewer stockpiles for health professionals or the vulnerable, as cases and deaths continue to surge
In Indonesia – where the health ministry has said boosters are only for health workers – members of the political elite, including the governor of a prominent region, were caught on camera discussing the boosters they received. The conversation was inadvertently broadcast in a live stream of an event on the Presidential Secretariat’s official channel.
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Thailand is investigating a director and a doctor at two hospitals who allegedly gave Pfizer jabs meant for pregnant women and health workers to family members and aides.
Ronaldo Zamora, a representative for San Juan City in the Philippines, has spoken openly at a press conference about getting four Covid-19 shots – a round of Pfizer, adding to the Sinopharm vaccine he received last year before it was even approved by regulators. His son, a mayor of the same city, later said it was done under doctor’s orders because Zamora was immunocompromised.
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“You might or might not make yourself safer by taking a booster shot,” Voo said. “But if you let the virus continue to transmit and mutate across your community, you will see more variants and more infections. Then, you’re not sure if your vaccine, no matter how many you’ve taken, will be enough.”
Southeast Asia is particularly emblematic of the complexities of the debate around boosters because countries like Indonesia and the Philippines relied heavily on inactivated shots made by Chinese companies, which studies have found to be less effective than the mRNA vaccines made by Moderna as well as Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.
Often, it is money, connections or influence that help people jump the queue for vaccines. However, the rush to distribute shots as quickly and as widely as possible has also left open loopholes for many who want to take advantage. In Indonesia, instances of booster misuse were spotted in the government’s registry after complaints were raised by whistle-blowers, according to crowdsourcing platform LaporCovid-19.
In the Philippines, it is possible to register in one city as a resident and in another as an employee, with no unified database. That has helped a privileged few with better jobs and higher salaries get additional jabs.
Still, the limited data then available on Sinovac’s effectiveness against the Delta strain weighed on his mind, he said. He did not report the vaccination to his company and went on to take a round of the Moderna vaccine through the firm this August.
In Indonesia, meanwhile, the military chief, who was also seen and heard on the live stream on the Presidential Secretariat’s official channel, denied getting a vaccine booster and said he had used the term “booster” to refer to a stem cell treatment he had received.
Amid shortages, some in Southeast Asia have resorted to travelling great distances or camping out at health centres just to vie for first or second shot. As governments start to ease lockdown measures for the vaccinated, crowds have swollen further, increasing the risk of infection.
Illicit booster shots undermine the government’s surveillance abilities because if authorities do not know how many people have been inoculated or what segments of society remain exposed, it hinders their ability to track transmission, said Leonila Dans, a clinical epidemiologist at the University of the Philippines.
“Jumping the queue harms not just one or two people,” Dans said. “It puts the entire community at risk.”