PH to get 30M doses of Indian-made Novavax

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines has been assured of at least 30 million doses of the Indian-made Novavax coronavirus vaccine, according to Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr.

“Thirty million [doses] of the Indian-made Novavax vaccines are assured possibly with no cash advance. It will be available by July 2021,” Locsin said in a television interview.

“The term sheet might be signed before the year ends,” he added.

Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine producer, is the manufacturer of Novavax.

In the same interview, Locsin also said vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. would start negotiations with Moderna on or before Dec. 30.

“I am glad that [Philippine] Ambassador [to the United States Jose Manuel] Romualdez himself is helping us with negotiations. Earlier this morning, he called and said that Moderna is interested in giving an allocation to the Philippines,” Locsin added.

Botched deal

Aside from the two companies, Locsin also noted that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had committed to help the Philippines secure vaccines from American manufacturer Pfizer following a botched deal.

Romualdez earlier said vaccines from Pfizer might likely come in by mid-2021.

Locsin earlier said in a post on Twitter that he and Romualdez were able to secure 10 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine for delivery by January 2021, but the plan did not push through because “someone dropped the ball.”

Locsin did not name who he was referring to in his tweet but Sen. Panfilo Lacson pointed to Health Secretary Francisco Duque III as the one who “dropped the ball” after failing to submit the required confidentiality disclosure agreement on time.

While his colleagues were lamenting the bungled Pfizer deal, Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III on Monday confirmed that he had warned Duque to “be careful” in procuring the vaccine developed by Pfizer with German firm BioNTech.

Lack of ultralow freezers

The Department of Health (DOH) chief said over the weekend that Pimentel had cautioned him two months ago about ordering the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, considering the lack of ultralow freezers in the Philippines.

Pimentel, in a Viber message to the Inquirer, expressed his reservations about the Pfizer deal following accusations that Duque “dropped the ball” and cost the Philippines the chance to acquire 10 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine by January at the earliest.

The opportunity later went to Singapore, officials said.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, Pimentel said, requires a negative 70-degree-Celsius storage chain, “which I doubt that the Philippines has already in place as of this time.”

“Hence, I am not really a big fan of a vaccine which needs a lot of upfront spending for handling and storage which then diverts resources from the purchase of the vaccines themselves,” Pimentel said.

The senator said he did not want a scenario in late 2021 or early 2022 of multimillion dollars worth of vaccines going to waste or spoilage due to improper handling.

“There are vaccines out there, including US-made vaccines, if we really are obsessed with made-in-the-USA products (which we should not be), which require more realistic storage conditions like 2 to 8 degrees Celsius,” he said.

“That temperature range I am sure we can already provide, as that looks like an ordinary refrigerator temperature. Bottom line is: Buy a vaccine which you can properly handle so that this will not go to waste,” Pimentel said. INQ