MANILA, Philippines — The government will not drop Sputnik V from its vaccination program despite being banned by Brazil, where health regulators raised questions about the safety of the Russian-made COVID-19 shot.
The Department of Health (DOH) made this clear as an initial batch of 15,000 Sputnik V doses, initially scheduled to be delivered on Wednesday, finally arrived on Saturday afternoon.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire pointed out that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted an emergency use authorization to Sputnik V on March 19. “This means it has studied the dossier of Sputnik V and found it to be acceptable and safe for our countrymen,” Vergeire said at the Laging Handa briefing.
“In case there are new findings from around the globe about this vaccine, the manufacturer of Sputnik V has that responsibility to the Philippine government to submit to us this kind of finding,” she said. “As of now, we have not received any such report and what was released in Brazil is based on their evaluation and these are just initial conclusions.”
For use in Metro Manila
“The initial pronouncements of regulatory authorities from other countries [will] just have to be studied,’’ she added.
The Sputnik V doses that arrived on Saturday would be distributed in four major cities in Metro Manila, she said.
Brazil’s concerns over Sputnik V stemmed from findings that the adenovirus used in the vaccine developed by Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute had the capacity to replicate and could cause problems for those with low immunity or with respiratory complications.
Russia said it would sue Brazil’s health regulator for defamation.
At the same briefing, Vergeire hailed the World Health Organization’s decision to approve the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use.
Virus case update
“That is good news because it would add to the number [of vaccines] that the COVAX [global pool] could provide to participating countries,” she said of the vaccine developed by the US biotechnology company of the same name.
The DOH on Saturday reported 9,226 new COVID-19 infections, bringing the country’s total case count to 1,046,653 cases.
Active cases stood at 72,248, with the majority, or 94.9 percent being mild; 1.7 percent were asymptomatic, 1.4 percent were severe, 1.1 percent were critical and 0.90 percent were moderate.
An additional 10,809 patients have recovered, raising the total number of survivors to 957,051.
But 120 more patients were added to the death toll, now at 17,354.
The DOH said it removed 33 duplicate cases from the total case count on Saturday, while 54 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths following final validation.
Based on DOH data, 64 percent of the country’s intensive care units (ICU) remain occupied, while 44 percent of all mechanical ventilators are in use.
The numbers are significantly higher in Metro Manila, the epicenter of the pandemic in the country, with 71 percent of all ICU beds and 55 percent of all mechanical ventilators in the metropolis being utilized.