PH to receive around 800K to 1M US-donated vaccines in July — envoy

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines is expected to receive 800,000 to one million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to be donated by the United States next month, Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel “Babe” Romualdez said Tuesday.

The doses are part of the 80 million vaccines that the US has in excess, which it decided to donate to several countries.

The vaccines will either be from Pfizer-BioNTech or AstraZeneca, Romualdez said.

“Doon sa 80 million na ‘yun [excess], we’re going to get something like close to 800,000 to one million doses, either Pfizer or AstraZeneca from their stockpile which is expected to be given to us by next month,” he said in a Palace briefing.

The Philippines will also get a portion from the 500 million donation of US “to the world,” the ambassador said.

“We’re getting quite a substantial amount of doses or vaccines coming from the US aside from what we’ve already negotiated,” he said.

The Philippines earlier negotiated for 20 million vaccine doses from US firm Moderna, a small portion of which, considered as the first batch, is expected to be delivered on June 27, Romualdez said.

The Philippines will then receive “close to a million” Moderna vaccines in July and will continually be receiving the said doses up to around November, he added.

Meanwhile, the Philippines government has recently inked a deal for 40 million doses of US-made Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, the bulk of which are expected to be delivered in August.

Romualdez said the Philippines is also one of the countries which are set to receive up to 50 million booster shots from Moderna next year.

JE