The national government is set to receive around 117,000 doses of Pfizer vaccines from the United States anytime this month, its first batch of COVID-19 vaccine since the pandemic began in the country last year.

Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said the Pfizer vaccines were secured through the country's participation in the Covax facility, a global initiative for the development and equal distribution of COVID-19 vaccines led by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Gavi vaccine alliance. 

"These 117,000 doses are dedicated for our healthcare workers to protect those who are in the frontlines of the fight," he said during the Coordinated Operations to Defeat Epidemic (CODE) Team's visit in Paranaque City.

Further, Galvez revealed that around 9.5 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from the United Kingdom are also set to be delivered by March or April.

The National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19, where Galvez also serves as its chief implementer, will also team up with the Department of Health to request an additional 900,000 doses of Pfizer vaccines from the Covax facility.

"We already requested a meeting with the DOH to make the request. We really hope the additional Pfizer doses will be granted for our health care workers," Galvez said.

Meanwhile, Galvez urged local government units (LGUs) to treat the vaccines as "precious gold" since not all developing countries are lucky to secure them in the early part of 2021.

"Ang bakuna natin ay parang ginto (Our vaccines are like gold). Precious ito (These are very precious). We were really nervous because we saw that only 20 percent of the global supply remained for the first and second quarter. We are happy that the WHO and Gavi managed to secure vaccines for our needs," Galvez said.

During the visit, Galvez also led the ocular inspection of the cold storage facility of Royal Cargo, Inc., a logistics provider which has expanded its facilities to cater to the temperatures required for the storage of different COVID-19 vaccines.

He expressed confidence that local government units (LGUs), particularly in Metro Manila, will be able to handle the storage of the COVID-19 vaccines once they start arriving in bulks.

At present, Galvez said 53 to 60 countries were able to roll out 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines around the world.
Of the 100 million doses used, around 70 percent were secured by four rich countries particularly the United States, China, and two European countries.

"There's a disparity in equality sa access sa mga vaccine (to the vaccines). Nagpapasalamat kami sa WHO na kahit kokonti, at least malaki ang maitutulong noon sa atin (We thank the WHO for the limited supply which will be a big help to us)," Galvez said.