VACCINE Czar Secretary Carlito Galvez said on Monday that they can start giving COVID19 vaccines to Filipinos by February.
During the Senate Committee of the Whole hearing, Galvez said the delivery of vaccines they ordered will be in the first week of February, thus they are expected to start administering vaccines by last week next month.
In the hearing. Galvez confirmed that the bulk of the COVID-19 vaccines that will be available in the Philippines will be from US drug maker Novavax.
“Our main volumes will be coming from Novavax with 30 to 40 million doses,” Galvez said.
Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine, Covovax, will be manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII), which recently signed an agreement with the Philippine government.
“For Pfizer, we are negotiating for higher volumes more or less 40 million and Astrazeneca 25-30 million doses, and Sinovac and Gamaleya for 25 million each,” he added.
“We might be receiving more or less 40 million doses from Covax for 20-30 million people,” he added.
Covax is the globally-pooled vaccine procurement and distribution effort co-led by the World Health Organization, the Gavi vaccine alliance, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.
“The main bulk of the vaccines that will be rolled out will be at the third quarter and fourth quarter of this year,” Galvez said.
Galvez also said 80% of global supply of the vaccine have already been cornered by rich countries, and that the Philippines and other poor countries “are now trying our best to negotiate with different vaccine companies to get a fair share of the vaccines for the remaining 18% of the global supply.”
Meanwhile, he admitted that the country may experience “some sort of shortfall” in the second or third quarter of 2022 due to “restrictions” in the supply chain.
