Two million doses of  Sinovac’s COVID-19 vaccines arrive in the country on August 12, 2021 at 7:20pm. Photo courtesy of NTC COVID-19/File

MANILA -- The Reuters investigative report on an alleged "secret campaign" of the United States military "to discredit China’s Sinovac" vaccination which targeted the Philippines, among other countries, "deserve[s] to be investigated."

This, according to a statement from the Department of Health (DOH) on Sunday.

According to the report, "The U.S. military launched a clandestine program amid the COVID crisis to discredit China’s Sinovac inoculation – payback for Beijing’s efforts to blame Washington for the pandemic. One target: the Filipino public."

"At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus," it added.

When asked for a comment, the DOH said: "the findings by Reuters deserve to be investigated and heard by the appropriate authorities of the involved countries."

"Meanwhile, there are published, peer-reviewed studies like that of Tejero et al. in BMC Public Health which found that '[v]accination decisions among Filipinos are determined by their age, educational attainment, health insurance, employer requirement, high awareness of the disease, and a high level of vaccine confidence,'" the agency explained in a Viber message to reporters. 

Sinovac was one of the COVID vaccines made available to the Philippines at the height of the pandemic, along with Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna, among others.

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