Philippine Authorities Want To 'Exchange' Their Health Workers For COVID-19 Vaccines

Nurse illustration. (@ hikeshaw / Unsplash)

JAKARTA - The Philippine authorities plan to allow their health workers, the majority of nurses, to work in the UK and Germany if the two countries agree to donate a COVID-19 vaccine.

Having the highest number of COVID-19 cases in Asia, the Philippines has relaxed its ban on deploying health workers abroad. However, they still limit it to only 5 thousand people per year.

Alice Visperas, director of the Bureau of International Affairs at the Ministry of Labor, said the Philippines was open to lifting those restrictions in exchange for vaccines from Britain and Germany, which will be used to inject outbound workers and hundreds of thousands of repatriated Filipinos.

"We are considering a request to lift the spread limit, as we agreed", Visperas told Reuters.

The UK, which has the fifth-highest death toll from COVID-19 in the world, through the Ministry of Health said they were not interested in the deal. The country focuses on using vaccines in the country but does not rule out the possibility of sharing the excess vaccine internationally in the future.

Britain says there are 11.000 more nurses working in the National Health Service (NHS) than last year. It said, despite being grateful to the 30.000 Filipinos working for the NHS, Britain would no longer need to 'trade' vaccines.

"We have no plans for the UK to agree to a vaccine deal with the Philippines regarding further recruitment of nurses", said a Health Ministry spokesman, citing Prime Minister Boris Johnson's pledge to share backup injections at the end of the year.

"We have confirmed that we will share the excess vaccine in the future, for example through the COVAX international procurement pool", he added.

The Philippines wants to get 148 million doses of the vaccine in total. The Philippines has not started COVID-19 vaccinations for 70 million adults, or two-thirds of its 108 million population. They expect its first vaccine this week, donated by China. Meanwhile, the UK has ordered more than 400 million doses, six times its population.

The Philippine nurses' association is struggling to lift a placement ban to avoid poor working conditions and low wages, including an unclear plan to vaccinate health workers.

"We are disgusted by how nurses and health care workers are treated by the government as a commodity or an export product", Jocelyn Andamo, secretary-general of Nurse Philippines.