DOH says WHO vouched for delivery of AstraZeneca vaccine by end-April

A vial of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is seen at the Aviva Stadium mass vaccination center amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Dublin, Ireland, April 4, 2021. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

MANILA, Philippines — The World Health Organization (WHO) has assured that AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine doses will arrive in the country towards the end of April, the Department of Health (DOH) said Friday.

“They (WHO) gave that assurance that towards the end of April, we will get our COVAX Facility batch of AstraZeneca vaccines, so hopefully the commitment is there and the batch of the vaccines will arrive,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in an online press briefing.

Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. earlier said that 979,200 AstraZeneca vaccine doses from COVAX are scheduled to be delivered in the country in late March or early April. However, he later announced that the delivery of the vaccines would be slightly delayed due to “global logistics constraints.”

On Thursday, the DOH temporarily suspended the use of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for people aged below 60 due to reports of rare cases of blood clots with low platelets detected in some vaccinated individuals in other countries.

This was in accordance with the suggestion of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), following the recommendation of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to list blood clots as very rare side effects of the AstraZeneca jabs.

FDA Director-General Eric Domingo said in the same press briefing that the drug regulator had a meeting with AstraZeneca on Wednesday following EMA’s statement. He said the British-Swede biopharmaceutical firm assured that it will indicate in the product label that blood clotting associated with thrombocytopenia or decreased platelet count are very rare side effects of the vaccine shots.

A total of 525,600 AstraZeneca doses from COVAX earlier arrived in the country in two batches on March 4 and 7.

EDV