MANILA , Philippines—Over 4 million face masks may soon be available in the Philippines to address the problem of shortage triggered by the coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19) outbreak.
At the Senate hearing on Tuesday, Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez has revealed that a local manufacturer has committed to allocate to the country 1.6 million of its 2.4 million surgical masks produced each month.
Lopez said the local manufacturer is selling the face masks to the Philippines at only P8 each.
“He’s (manufacturer) losing P15 million a month,” the official told the Senate committee on government corporations.
Of the 1.6 million face masks, Lopez said, about 1.2 million are provided to health workers while only 150, 000 are being sold in drug stores.
He said they would meet with the manufacturer to request a bigger allocation— from the current 1.6 million a month to 2 million at least over the next two months.
This way, he said, more face masks may be made available also to drug stores.
Lopez said they have found another supplier from India that can supply more 2 million face masks to the Philippines.
“I think more than two million yun, first order. Pwedeng one month , pwedeng a month so 2.5 million if I remember the quantity right,” he said.
The official noted there is now a high demand for face masks in the country that its price has skyrocketed by more than 100 percent.