PH to buy 25 million doses from China’s Sinovac

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines plans to procure 1 million to 2 million doses a month of CoronaVac from China until it reaches a total of 25 million doses by the end of the year, according to the country’s Ambassador to China Jose Santiago Sta. Romana.

The Philippines has been using donated doses of Sinovac in its mass immunization program.

But it has also procured 1 million CoronaVac doses from Sinovac Biotech that are expected to arrive on Monday.

“After that, the government’s plan is roughly 1 (million) to 2 million doses every month from Sinovac, almost every month, for a total of about 25 million until by the end of the year,” Sta. Romana said at an online briefing.

He also said the Philippine Embassy in Beijing had been facilitating communication between Sinopharm, another Chinese vaccine maker, and the Department of Health and the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases so it could soon get an emergency use authorization (EUA) for its vaccine against COVID-19.

Sinopharm would need to submit data to the Food and Drug Administration so it could get an EUA, he said.

There was also a need to clarify who would be the local distributor of Sinopharm, he said.

Sta. Romana said the Philippines had not gone soft on its protection of the country’s sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea just because China donated vaccines against COVID-19 to the country.

The country has a dual track policy where it can cooperate with China on the pandemic response, but also protect its territory, he said.

The Philippines has pushed back against Chinese incursion into its waters, he said.

“If China plans to make us soft, we have shown that [the vaccine donation] has no connection. This is the other track on issues where we have differences or disputes on issue of sovereignty and sovereign rights, we stand our ground and we protest when we need to. We push back when we need to,” he said.