(FILE) Filipino outbound seafarers wait for thier turn to get the Pfizer and Sinovac Covid-19 vaccines at the Bonifacio Global City Vaccination Hub in Taguig City on Tuesday, July 6. 📷:Niño Jesus Orbeta/Philippine Daily Inquirer
MANILA, Philippines — The private sector may not need to pursue a tripartite agreement with the government if the country’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will grant full approval of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine, presidential adviser for entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion said Wednesday.
The United States’ FDA earlier granted full approval for the use of Pfizer’s vaccine on people over the age of 16. The vaccine has been authorized only for emergency use in the US since December and in the Philippines since January.
Concepcion said a full approval of the vaccine will be a game-changer in the private sector’s procurement of COVID-19 shots.
“I think Secretary [Carlito] Galvez, it’s no hindrance to him if AstraZeneca will continue this relationship with us and we will continue with the tripartite, but now with Pfizer getting full FDA approval [from the US], it changes,” he told ABS-CBN News Channel.
“Now, the private sector, once the FDA grants full approval here in the Philippines, we can now import directly from Pfizer and we don’t need to form this tripartite already because they have FDA approval,” he added.
“That changes the game because when you have full approval, it’s already sold in commercial [establishments], you can buy it in Mercury and other drug stores,” he further said.
A tripartite agreement is a deal between private companies or local government units, pharmaceutical firms that developed the vaccine, and the government. It has been through this deal that local government units and the private sector have been able to procure their own anti-COVID shots.
“Having full approval will give us more access to these vaccines,” Concepcion said.
The Philippines has so far administered over 30 million COVID-19 vaccine doses since the inoculation program started in March, according to Galvez, the country’s vaccine czar. He said 17.4 million doses were provided as first jabs. Meanwhile, over 13 million Filipinos are now fully vaccinated against the disease.