MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) on Tuesday said it will wait for the Food and Drug Administration’s authorization before accepting and using the coronavirus vaccines that will be donated by China.
The DOH issued the statement after FDA Director-General Eric Domingo said the health agency may accept and administer the vaccine shots even as they have not issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) to any of the candidate Chinese vaccines.
“We will wait for the issuance of an EUA by the Philippine FDA before we accept and administer the donated vaccines. Same thing with vaccines that we will procure,” the DOH said in a statement.
Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, during his visit to Manila over the weekend, announced that Beijing will donate 500,000 doses of coronavirus vaccines to the Philippines.
So far, the only vaccine that was given EUA by the FDA is the one developed by US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. The EUA application of China’s Sinovac Biotech, the government’s preferred vaccine maker, is currently bring evaluated by the FDA.