The Philippine government will continue its vaccination program, despite the death of a healthcare worker who recently inoculated with Sinovac's COVID-19 vaccine.

"There is no reason to suspend our vaccination program as first the vaccine is not what cause the death of our healthcare worker", said Beverly Lorraine Ho, DOH spokesperson said in a press conference on Thursday.

"Second, the DOH (Department of Health) and FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has continued to emphasized the benefits of vaccination continued... the risk of us getting COVID-19, particularly severe COVID-19," she added.

Rommel Lobo, vice chair of Adverse Events Following Immunization Committee (AEFIC) explained that the death of the 47-years-old healthcare worker is because of COVID-19 infection and not due to the vaccine.

"The cause was determined to be unrelated to the vaccination. The cause of death was COVID-19 and today there are more than 12,000 Filipinos that have died of COVID-19," he said.

"The individual was a 47-year-old woman with known hypertension, diabetes, and bronchial asthma ," he added.

Lobo said prior her vaccination on March 4, the healthcare worker "underwent RTPCR test in Feb. 22, 2021 and her result was said to be positive and (she) undergo another RTPCR test on Feb. 23 and the result came out negative."

"On March 4, on the day when she was vaccinated with Sinovac she has no symptoms upon screening which she declared in her health declaration form. On March 8, she was tested positive with COVID. She was advised admission but she refused," he said.

"On March 10, she was admitted to the hospital where she was provided appropriate care to manage her COVID infection. Unfortunately, she died on March 13 of COVID-19 infection, and COVID-19 vaccine does not cause COVID-19 disease because its unactivated vaccine and none of the vaccine used in the Philippine can make people sick in COVID-19," he added. Robina Asido/DMS