(REUTERS)
MANILA, Philippines — The first 1,500 doses of the 200,000 doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine purchased by the Philippine Red Cross (PRC) will arrive in the country on Saturday, the organization’s chairman, Senator Richard Gordon, said Friday.
“This weekend. Tomorrow. Yun ang sabi sakin ng staff ko dito [That’s what my staff told me] and I trust them,” Gordon said during a forum hosted by the Ateneo de Manila University ’57, ’61, ’65 alumni.
The said batch was initially supposed to be delivered on June 23, according to the senator.
Earlier, Gordon said the PRC ordered a total of 200,000 doses of Moderna’s anti-COVID shot. The PRC will be offering Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at P3,500 for two doses.
Senator Richard Gordon (Screengrab from Laging handa briefing)
“You know why we ordered? We ordered, we put out our own money because hindi dumadating yung mga vaccines [the vaccines are not arriving]. Nakitulong na kami [We decided to help],” the senator said.
“Our objective is to vaccinate as fast as we can and if people can afford to pay, we can recover our cost. We don’t charge extra, we just make sure we’re able to vaccinate a lot more people,” he added.
Gordon, however, clarified that the Red Cross is not “selling” the doses but instead charging for them to recover the cost the PRC paid for the jabs.
“Merong nangiintriga kaagad, bakit daw namin binebenta. ‘Di kami nagbebenta, cost recovery ang tawag diyan at sa batas [Some are sowing intrigue, they’re asking why are we selling. We are not selling. That’s called cost recovery and under the law] we are allowed to recoup our investment to help the country,” Gordon said.
He added that those who will avail of PRC’s offer of Moderna vaccine doses should donate for the vaccination of “one less fortunate person.”
“Tawag ko diyan [That’s what I call] vaccine samaritan,” he said.
The Philippines has so far received a total of 16.2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
The vaccine brands currently being used by the government in its inoculation drive are CoronaVac (Sinovac) , AstraZeneca, Sputnik V and Pfizer-BioNTech, some of which were donated by the World Health Organization-led COVAX facility.