Terms of vaccine procurement deals will be disclosed once negotiations are done — official

MANILA, Philippines — All of the terms of the government’s deals with manufacturers of Covid-19 vaccines, including prices and volume of the vaccines procured, will be disclosed to the public once negotiations are concluded, the country’s testing czar assured on Monday.

Secretary Vince Dizon, deputy chief implementer of the National Action Plan Against COVID -19, reiterated the government’s position that it is bound by confidentiality agreements with vaccine manufacturers while negotiations are ongoing.

“What we can assure to the general public is that negotiations are ongoing, and when these negotiations have been concluded, then the issues such as price, volume will all be disclosed to the general public,” he said over ABS-CBN News Channel.

“I think we all just need to keep our eyes on the ball and focus on ensuring that we have access to the very limited supply in the global market. But the prices, they will be very transparently disclosed at the time when the negotiations are done,” he added.

In a radio interview on Sunday, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said that the price of Sinovac vaccines that will be procured by the Philippines will not be far from the P650 per dose in Indonesia.

Dizon noted that what Roque mentioned is not the exact price but only a range of the price of the vaccine.

“There are so much information coming out, some accurate, some are not. We just really have to be very careful. But what the vaccine czar has repeatedly said and what he is committed to do is to ensure we have adequate supply and also that these negotiations are going to be very transparent,” Dizon also said, referring to Sec. Carlito Galvez Jr.

“And once the terms have been finalized with the vaccine companies, all of these details will be disclosed not just for Sinovac but for all vaccine companies currently undergoing negotiations,” Dizon added.

In a separate interview, Galvez explained that revealing the price of Sinovac vaccines to be procured by the Philippines would have compromised the country’s deals with other vaccine manufacturers.

He said he could not disclose how much the Philippines will be paying for the vaccine from China during the Senate hearing on the national vaccination plan, since it would likely prompt other firms to withdraw from their deals on vaccination with the Philippine government.

EDV