Chief implementer of the government’s national policy on Covid-19 Carlito G. Galvez, Jr. said an additional 5.5 million doses of Covid vaccines are expected to arrive next month.
He said around 2 million doses will be the Coronavac vaccines of Sinovac Biotech, which are part of the 25 million doses negotiated by the government with the Chinese pharmaceutical firm.
Another 3 million doses will be the Sputnik V vaccines of the Russian vaccine maker, Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology.
“Since it already has an EUA (Emergency Use Authorization), we could start negotiating to purchase 2 to 3 million doses [of Sputnik V],” Galvez said during public address of President Rodrigo R. Duterte on Monday.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued the UEA for Sputnik V last Friday.
The remaining 1 million doses will come from the Vaccines Global Access (Covax) facility and maybe Covid-19 vaccine of AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech.
Galvez said they also schedule to secure 8.9 million doses on May, 11.5 million doses on June, and 13.5 million doses by July.
“So we are targeting by April and May, we will be able to vaccinate 500,000 to 1 million [people] per week,” Galvez said.
From July to Dec. he said they are anticipating the government will be able to secure 20 million doses per month.
Latest arrivals
The next wave of vaccine shipments will be on top of the 2.37 million doses, which are expected to arrive before the end of the month, according to Galvez.
These include the following vaccines: 400,000 doses of Coronavac donated by the Chinese government; 979,200 of AstraZeneca vaccines; 1 million doses of Coronavac paid by the government.
Galvez said they are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the additional doses so they could complete the two-dose inoculation of 1.7 million health care workers (HCW).
Currently, the government was able to give the first dose of 369,049 individuals.
The government is targeting to immunize 50 to 70 million people by the end of the year.
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