Health workers in the National Capital Region have been trained by no less than the Department of Health (DOH) to handle Gamaleya’s Sputnik V that arrived on Saturday (May 1) , Parañaque City Mayor Edwin Olivarez said.

"Nagkaroon na po tayo ng training ng ating mga health workers mismo ang nag-officiate po nito yung atin pong DOH at iyong atin pong capacity, yung logistics at yung atin pong storage facility nakaset up na po dito para po sa pagdating ng Sputnik (Our health workers have been trained which was officiated by the DOH while our logistics and our storage has been set up for the vaccine's arrival)," Olivarez, who is also chairman of MMC, said.

Sputnik V’s logistical and storage requirements are more complex as compared to Sinovac and AstraZeneca, which only require 2 to 8 degree centigrade storage temperatures.

While the country now has three brands in its vaccine supply inventory, Olivarez mentioned that citizens should seize the opportunity of getting vaccinated if supplies are available since it takes time for it to arrive.

Gamaleya’s Sputnik V is the second government-procured vaccine that was delivered to the country following Sinovac’s CoronaVac vaccines.

National Task Force against COVID-19 Chief Implementer and vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr.  confirmed that 500,000 doses of Sputnik V will be delivered to the country by May. The initial batch of 15,000 doses will be used in a “pilot run” in preparation for the arrival of 485,000 doses this month.