MANILA, Philippines — About 200,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine from US pharmaceutical company Moderna are expected to arrive in the Philippines in June, Philippine Ambassador to the United States Jose Manuel “Babe” Romualdez said Tuesday.
Romualdez said Moderna had confirmed to him that the firm would begin delivering the vaccines purchased by the country by June 15.
The delivery of vaccine doses will then be ramped up in the following months until Moderna completes the shipment of the 20 million doses secured by the government and private sector by the end of the year.
“They’re quite confident that they’ll be able to start rolling in the vaccines or the delivery of vaccines starting June 15 then it will start increasing it in succeeding months July, August, September up to the end of the year,” he said in a Palace briefing.
“We were able to secure something like close to 200,000 of Moderna shots na mauuna diyan sometime around mid-June,” he added.
The first batch of Moderna shots would come from Europe instead of the US, he added.
As this process goes on, vaccines that are made by Pfizer-BioNTech and sourced from the WHO’s Covax facility could reach the country in May, Romualdez said.
The delivery of 117,000 doses, which was originally set in February, was delayed due to “some legal problems that we had to overcome,” he added.
The Philippine government has begun finalizing the vaccine agreements, which should be completed by next week.
READ: Moderna vaccines expected in June; Fil-Ams lobby Biden for jabs