The Philippines is planning to donate some of its Covid-19 vaccines to other nations in a bid to help ramp up their vaccination activities, the Department of Health (DOH) said on Thursday, March 10.

DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III said they are eyeing to donate the country’s Covid-19 vaccines with short shelf lives.

“Yung hindi magagamit at malapit ng mag expire, ang desisyon diyan ay i-donate sa mga bansang mababa ang (Those that we will not be using and already near expiry, the decision is to donate that to other countries with low) vaccine coverage,” said Duque in a public briefing.

“Maganda naman ang layunin na iyan para makatulong din tayo sa mga kapatid natin mula sa ibang bansa na namamayagpag pa rin ang Covid-19 pero ang supply ng bakuna ay kulang na kulang (That is a good objective so that we can also help other countries who are still battling with Covid-19 but their supply of vaccines is very low),” he added.

Some of the possible recipients of these vaccines are Myanmar, Cambodia, and African countries, said Duque.

“Pero kung ilan yung bakuna na mado-donate iyan ay binubuo pa iyan ng ating National Vaccination Operations Center (However, the number of vaccines that will be donated is still being studied by our National Vaccination Operations Center),” noted Duque.

The Health chief, meanwhile, assured the public that the Philippines has enough supply of Covid-19 vaccines.

“Yung supply natin ng bakuna stable. Kasi nagdagsaan nga ito nung October, tuloy-tuloy. Yung last na nabigyan tayo four million doses ng I think Pfizer. Pagdating sa supply, walang problema (Our supply of vaccines is stable. A lot of vaccines were delivered last October. Then recently, we received--- I think four million doses of Pfizer. When it comes to supply, there is no problem),” said Duque.