The Philippines coronavirus vaccination (COVID-19 vaccination may hit a snag as delivery for this month would be 3.5 million doses short of what is expected, a top official in charge of procuring the vaccine said on Tuesday, April 6.
(NTF AGAINST COVID-19 / FILE PHOTO)
Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19 chief implementer and vaccine czar, attributed it to the global supply shortage.
From expected 5.5 million doses, Galvez said, the expected delivery for the month of April will only be two million doses--1.5 million doses of CoronaVac vaccines and 500,000 doses of Sputnik V vaccines that were procured by the government from China's Sinovac Biotech and Russia's Gamaleya Research Institute, respectively.
The CoronaVac vaccines may arrive "this week" while the tentative date of arrival for Sputnik V is on April 12, Galvez noted.
The NTF chief implementer said that the deliveries were affected by the delay in the arrival of second tranche of vaccines from the Covax facility, where the country awaits 979,200 doses of vaccines manufactured by British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca, and the slashed allocation of Sputnik V vaccines given to the country.
But even with the delayed vaccines from Covax, Galvez assured that the government will obtain enough supply of vaccines to complete the two-dose inoculation using AstraZeneca. The country had received the first tranche from the Covax facility -- composed of 525,600 doses -- in March.
Galvez said the World Health Organization, which co-leads the Covax facility, vowed to deliver the delayed supply "by end of April."
"Ginagawa po natin lahat ng magagawa with our diplomatic relations ngayon para makapagproduce tayo ng AstraZeneca vaccines considering na mayroon din tayong procurement. Rest assured na 'yung second dose ng 525,600 doses ay magagawa po natin 'yan (We are doing everything we can with our diplomatic relations to produce AstraZeneca vaccines considering that we also have procurements. Rest assured that we will have the second dose of those 525,600 doses)," Galvez said.
Meanwhile, Galvez said they were still coordinating with Russia through the embassy to reconsider the slashed allocation of Sputnik V vaccines.
Galvez had said that the original allocation of three million Sputnik V vaccines to the country were reduced by Russia to only 500,000 due to increased global demand amid the supply shortage.
He said the supply agreement for the procurement of Sputnik V vaccines may be signed this week.
"Baka makakuha tayo ng 500,000 for the elderly na pwedeng gamitin (We may be able to get 500,000 doses which can be used for the elderly)," Galvez said.