By Herbie Gomez
Editor-in-Chief
and Froilan Gallardo
Special Correspondent
A 73-year-old man died minutes after he received his Covid-19 vaccine shot in Cagayan de Oro shortly before noon today.
Zoilo Joaquin Borcillo was pronounced dead on arrival at the city hall-run JR Borja Memorial General Hospital, where he was rushed due to breathing difficulties about 15 minutes after being inoculated.
Borcillo, a resident of Barangay Agusan, was accompanied by his son at SM Premiere mall where he was given his first AstraZeneca jab past 11 am.
He started feeling discomfort at the observation area of the mall at around 11:44 am, nine minutes after being inoculated. He was subsequently rushed to the hospital about six minutes later, said Dr. William Bernardo, head for logistics of the local Covid-19 inter-agency task force.
Mayor Oscar Moreno ordered an investigation into Borcillo’s death, saying the incident was a potential setback and could have a “deterring effect” on the government’s vaccination program in the city and elsewhere.
Moreno, however, said people should continue trusting that the vaccines serve as protection against the deadly virus.
He said city hall would continue the vaccination program and still use the AstraZeneca doses given by the Department of Health (DOH).
On Wednesday alone, city hall inoculated over a thousand more than 100,000 elderly people living in the city.
Dr. Bernardo said Borcillo looked fine but his blood pressure slightly rose to 150/80 shortly before he received the vaccine dose.
“His blood pressure was still at an acceptable range by DOH standards,” he said.
Borcillo had declared his comorbidities, and that he had been taking maintenance medicines for his hypertension and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BHP).
Quoting nurses and the physician who administered the dose, Bernardo said Borcillo was “ambulatory and didn’t look sick.”
“The procedures and guidelines set by the DOH were all followed. So, this is really an unfortunate event,” Bernardo said.
Moreno said he received conflicting accounts about Borcillo’s medical history, and city hall was in the process of finding out if the man had really undergone open-heart surgery but withheld that vital information from the frontline health workers.
“I think we can get a lesson from this ― that we should tell doctors everything,” he said.
The Department of Health had earlier temporarily halted the use of AstraZeneca on people below 60 years after reports surfaced of rare blood clots with people with low platelets.
Last month, The DOH and Food Drug Administration lifted the ban and resumed the use of vaccines on people regardless of age.
“The benefit outweighs the risk. Only a small percentage of the population had these adverse effects for AstraZeneca,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire told a regular news conference in Manila.
Moreno also ordered the continuation of the vaccination program being held at SM downtown Shopping Mall, Robinson’s grocery; and JRBGH.
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