MANILA, Philippines — The COVID-19 vaccine supply in the country, especially in areas experiencing a surge of cases of the severe respiratory illness, is expected to normalize by June 14 with the arrival of new doses, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said Wednesday.
He admitted that local governments in Metro Manila and nearby provinces such as Rizal have insufficient vaccine doses, with no more supply for first doses.
However, with the arrival of 3.2 million vaccine doses on Thursday, June 10, including one million doses of CoronaVac from China’s Sinovac BioTech, the supply will be stabilized.
“Ang nakita natin, magkakaroon tayo ng talagang supply this coming June 14. By June 14, magno-normalize na ‘yung supply natin,” he said.
(We see that we will have a supply this coming June 14. By June 14, our supply will normalize.)
To address the shortfall, Galvez said local government units have been using doses meant for second dose as the first dose.
But this can only be allowed with the go signal of the national government.
“Mayroon kaming ginagawang sequencing. Kapag nakita natin na nandiyan na ‘yung bakuna at malapit na i-deploy, gagamitin na nila yung second dose as first dose para ‘yung time element mare-reduce natin,” he said.
(We are doing some sequencing. When we see that the supply is coming and it can be deployed, LGUs can use the second dose as first dose to reduce the time element of the vaccines.)
The Antipolo city government earlier reported that it had to halt its COVID-19 vaccinations due to the lack of vaccine supply.
“Bukod sa A1, A2 at A3, MALAPIT NA din daw payagan ang A4 simulan … pero wala namang bakunang dumarating,” the government said in a Facebook post on June 6.
(Apart from those in the A1, A2 and A3 groups, those in A4 will soon be vaccinated… but there are still no vaccines arriving.)