The head of the League of Provinces of the Philippines (LPP) emphasized Friday, August 20, that it would be the best option for local government units (LGUs) to rely on the guidance of the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19 and Department of Health (DOH) in purchasing their supply of vaccines.
LPP national president and Marinduque Governor Presbitero Velasco Jr. said that supply constraints is likely the reason why the NTF decided to halt the signing of some multi-party agreements on the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines.
He issued the clarification after Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri said that the national government, LGUs, and COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers have yet to sign “almost all’’ of their transactions which caused a delayin the vaccine purchase of some provinces.
“Because there are some suppliers of vaccines like those of Sinovac, Pfizer and Sputnik V, if you request for these vaccines then NTF will not sign the tripartite agreements because they want to prioritize the supply of the national government,’’ Velasco said in a television interview over ABS-CBN's ANC.
"For Moderna and AstraZeneca, they are not actually accepting orders for now. And for Johnson & Johnson, it’s not yet open for tripartite agreement, because they manifested that they will not be executing agreements as of the present, while for the Novavax and Covavax, they don’t have the emergency use authorization yet from FDA. And likewise for Covaxin,’’ he added.
The LPP chief noted that it would be an exercise in futility as of the moment to sign vaccine purchases due to the concerns in vaccine availability.
“With respect to the supply of the vaccines, that’s really a big problem and even that’s happening in many parts of the world. So it just might be useless to be signing the tripartite agreement and making those advance payments when you won’t be able to receive the deliveries of the supplies at this time,’’ Velasco stressed.
He added that it might be unproductive for many groups giving inputs concerning vaccine purchases in the midst of the pandemic.
“If there are too many people who are deciding on what can be done with respect to a national health emergency, like this very difficult problem with the COVID-19 and more particularly the Delta variant, it may be more chaotic and problematic and this may not be effective in the end," Velasco maintained.
While there are calls that the LGUs should directly deal with the vaccine suppliers without the intervention of the NTF and DOH, Velasco pointed out it would still be best that the national government handle these transactions.
“Because I believe that the reasons for this process are meritorious and because the lawmakers believe that this will prevent overpricing or price competition and that the supply of the vaccines will be regulated by the experts," he added.