MANILA, Philippines — Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. on Wednesday said the country will have up to 3 million more COVID-19 vaccines this month with the arrival of Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines donated through the World Health Organization-led COVAX Facility.
In his report to President Rodrigo Duterte during the latter’s televised public address, Galvez said that following his team’s latest negotiations with Pfizer and COVAX officials, an “assurance” was given that 1.3 million doses would be arriving this month. An initial shipment of 193,000 doses would arrive this May 11 for a “mini rollout” to test the country’s preparedness for the deployment of the vaccine.
Galvez said 1 to 2 million AztraZeneva doses would also be arriving this month.
“We won’t have problems about the second dose anymore … We are just fixing the definite date [of arrival]. Those who got their first doses will be happy because AstraZeneca vaccines will be coming from COVAX,” he said.
Alternative sources
The country had to find alternative sources for AstraZeneca vaccines because the 525,600 doses that earlier arrived were deployed as first doses.
For May, the country has been expecting only 4 million doses: 2 million from Sinovac and 2 million from Gamaleya. An initial 15,000 doses of Gamaleya’s Sputnik V vaccines arrived last Sunday for a trial deployment.
Galvez said the arrival of the donated vaccines from COVAX was “good news,” meaning the country will have “not trickles, but volumes” of supply this month.
He said the initial Pfizer doses, which must be stored in subzero temperatures, would be delivered straight to Manila, Cebu, and Davao so that they can be deployed quickly. Pfizer officials also advised that the vaccines be administered within 120 hours after arrival.
Prioritized
Galvez said other local governments that have their own ultracold chain storage facilities, such as Iloilo and Bacolod, would be prioritized for the Pfizer vaccines. The Pfizer vaccines would be offered to the remaining 20 to 30 percent of the country’s healthcare workers that have not yet been inoculated.
Galvez also reported that more than 2 million vaccine doses have been administered as of Tuesday. He said 2,065,235 doses were administered to around 1.7 million Filipinos.
Asked by the President if Filipinos have vaccine brand preferences, Galvez said that based on his observation, “only a few” were choosy.
Galvez also reiterated the government’s strategy of prioritizing urban centers affected most by COVID-19 in the vaccination program. He said this has been done in countries such as Turkey and Indonesia and the result was a decline of cases.
He said once these “centers of gravity” achieve herd immunity by October or November, their economies would recover between 60 percent and 80 percent. He said the strategy had been backed by Speaker Lord Allan Velasco, former Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit, and private sector leaders.