The government will crush used vials of the vaccines against coronavirus disease to ensure these will not be recycled for the purpose of faking the drugs, an official said on Wednesday.

Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles reminded the public there are no COVID-19 vaccines yet in the country.

"So, if there are those offering (you the vaccines), that means it's illegal. We don't have the vaccine yet. It's easy to determine that it's fake," he said in an interview with state-run PTV4.

The first batch of vaccines from Pfizer under the COVAX Facility is expected to arrive in the country within the month.

"Our producers, immediately after using the vials, there's a need to crush them so that there will be no more vials to be recycled and can be used to fool the people," said Nograles, who co-chairs the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.

He said unscrupulous people might use the empty vials, if not crushed, by placing water inside them and sell them in the black market as fake vaccines.

He also said all pharmaceutical companies around the world were only able to secure emergency use authorization for their respective vaccines, thus, they cannot be sold to the public.

Nograles said there is no point of having oneself vaccinated with fake COVID-19 vaccine since it is only the authorities who will also issue the travel passport once inoculated by the real vaccines. Celerina Monte/DMS