THE Philippines awaits the arrival of its first two batches of Covid-19 vaccines starting this Sunday — one from China’s donation of Sinovac and the other, AstraZeneca jabs that are part of the Vaccines Global Access (Covax) facility championed by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Announcements of the arrival of the two sets of vaccines came as the country posted, for the second day in a row, a new record high for Covid-19 cases. A total of 2,921 additional infections were reported on Saturday (February 27).
President Duterte is expected to witness the turnover ceremony of the first batch of Sinovac vaccines donated by China, Sen. Christopher “Bong” Go said on Friday.
And on Saturday, Senator Go announced that 525,600 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines are also expected to be shipped to the country on Monday (March 1).
In a statement, Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the Covax facility informed the government of the arrival of the vaccines made by AstraZeneca and developed by Oxford University.
“This forms part of the 44 million doses of Covax to inoculate 20 percent of our population,” Roque said.
The Covax is being managed by Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), a Geneva-based international public-private organization, which aims to facilitate the distribution of vaccines nationwide, particularly in poor countries in coordination with the WHO.
Roque lauded British ambassador to the Philippine Daniel Pruce for his “intercession” in fast-tracking the arrival of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
He also thanked GAVI, WHO, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) for the upcoming vaccine delivery.
Inoculation begins
The government is expected to start its nationwide Covid-19 vaccination drive after the arrval of the Sinovac and Astrazeneca vaccines.
AstraZeneca’s vaccine was the second product granted with emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration on January 28, 2021.
On Tuesday, WHO Representative to the Philippines Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinghe assured the public that the estimated 5.5 million to 9.2 million doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine expected by the second quarter of this year from the Covax Facility will “not be at risk” given the limited supply of vaccines globally.
Despite reports that AstraZeneca manufacturer is no longer accepting orders for Covid vaccine, Abeyasinghe said that they are hoping for an early rollout of the vaccine, noting that “the Philippines met all the requirements for AstraZeneca.”
“What we are now looking at is accelerating delivery of those AstraZeneca vaccines [to the Philippines],” Abeyasinghe said.
He said AstraZeneca has three facilities – Europe, India and South Korea. The facility in South Korea, he said, is “exclusively manufacturing” for Covax facility.
The WHO official also expressed optimism that the country can achieve its goal to vaccinate 20 percent of the population before end of this year.
The Sinovac vaccines, which are the country’s first batch of COVID-19 jabs, consist of 600,000 doses. Some of these have been reserved for military personnel and civilian employees of the Department of National Defense (DND).
The donated doses from the Chinese government are expected to benefit 300,000 people since each person will need two doses of vaccine to be inoculated from Covid-19.
Saturday case log
As of 4 p.m Saturday., the Department of Health (DOH) said the Covid-19 cases in the country stood at 574,247.
There were also 293 recoveries and 42 deaths.
Of the total number of cases, 6.5 percent (37,093) are active cases, 91.4 percent (524,865) have recovered, 2.14 percent (12,289) have died.
Just like on Friday, the DOH did not give any comment when asked for the possible reason behind the rise in cases.
Six laboratories were not able to submit their data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System on February 26, 2021.