SIX of 10 Filipinos prefer coronavirus vaccines made in the US, according to a Social Weather Stations (SWS) poll.
The poll, conducted on April 28 to May 2, showed 63% of Filipinos would rather get vaccinated with a shot from the US, followed by China (19%), Japan (13%), Australia (13%), the United Kingdom (13%), Canada (12%) and Russia (12%).
When asked which vaccine brand they preferred, Chinese Sinovac Biotech Ltd. topped the list at 39%, followed by Pfizer, Inc. at 32%, AstraZeneca Plc at 22% and Johnson & Johnson at 10%.
The rest obtained single-digit scores: Moderna, Inc. (7%), CureVac N.V. (3%), Sinopharm Group Co .Ltd.(3%), Novavax, Inc. (3%), Sanofi Pasteur (3%) and Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology (2%).
Two percent chose all 10 brands, while 19% did not give an answer.
SWS said 76% of those who chose China as their preferred source of vaccines also selected Sinovac’s CoronaVac.
Majority of those who chose the US as their source of vaccines preferred Pfizer (43%) and Sinovac (41%).
Most of the respondents who chose the United Kingdom as their preferred source chose the AstraZeneca shot.
SWS said Sinovac was the most preferred brand in Mindanao (44%) and the Visayas (44%).
It said respondents in Metro Manila equally preferred Sinovac and Pfizer brands (37%).
The government had taken delivery of more than seven million doses of vaccines at the time of the poll — about 5 million doses of CoronaVac, 2.5 million doses from AstraZeneca and 30,000 doses of Sputnik V.
A week later, the government took delivery of its initial 193,000 Pfizer doses. SWS interviewed 1,200 adults for the poll, which had an error margin of ±3 points. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza
