AMBASSADOR Jose Manuel “Babe” Romualdez said on Monday US President Joe Biden has committed to provide the Philippines with more Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson (J&J), which are part of the 80 million doses scheduled to go overseas.
Asked whether it is true that President Biden had written President Duterte a letter promising to help him procure the vaccines, Romualdez said: “I think it was a general letter that President Biden brought to the President [Duterte]. It’s more of an affirmation of our special relationship, considering that we’re celebrating our 75th anniversary this year and the 70th year of our Mutual Defense Treaty [MDT].”
Romualdez added, “And I’m told Biden has committed as soon as available, to supply the Philippines with vaccines next month.”
He said, “June 21st is the target for 300 thousand doses but we will get more by July, August, and September, the months when we’re getting potentially more.”
The former newsman said the US will get 20 million doses of Pfizer and 60 million doses from AstraZeneca, which it will distribute through Covax, the World Health Organization-led facility set up to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines among countries.
In an interview Monday on CNN Philippines’s “The Source,” Romualdez said, “Definitely we’re going to benefit from it; they’re [US] going from what I’m told to Covax, where they donated about $4 billion—the largest donations in the world.”
He added, “And so, and we expect them to give us almost the same amount that they give us before which is 2 million doses, and another 2 million from Pfizer.” He said the Philippines is part of about 100 countries asking the US for the same thing, and the 80 million doses are being given out to the world because “they’re [US] already near herd immunity and the target is by July 4th this year. When that happens, expect the US to be more generous [in] giving out to the world.”
According to Romualdez, there were three things he had in mind to ask the US related to the Covid-19 vaccines: a possible donation, more vaccines through the Covax facility and third, procurement of US-made vaccines.
He thinks American vaccines could come as early as the first week of June this year, followed by another batch on the second week of the same month.
“Remember, we are getting our supply of Pfizer from Covax which is much cheaper, and that is part and parcel of the donation of the US to the Covax facility,” he noted.
He said he had encouraged vaccine czar, Carlito Galvez to sign up for up to 40 million doses of Pfizer. “That will give us a good number of vaccines that will be made available for our citizens and another 20 million from Moderna, and that should give us at least 30 to 40 million people to be vaccinated this year.”
Romualdez said the Philippines is getting a special price from Pfizer through Covax, because of the Americans’ huge donation, including Manila’s own contribution. He said, however, that a problem arose when India was hit by a high number of cases, stalling their timeline for manufacturing vaccines. The number of deaths in that country has crossed 300,000 the third highest in the world.
Thus, the Philippines must source more vaccines from other sources, “and we’re working on that not only from the US but through AstraZeneca right now.”
Aside from the reported 5 million doses procured from J&J, Romualdez said “we’re getting another 5 million from J&J, which he said does not have stringent storage requirement and therefore, ideal for the provinces or rural areas of the country.
J&J vaccines are scheduled to arrive most likely around August or September because production of J&J is much slower than Pfizer, which has a bigger facility, and they also manufacture, not only in the USA but also in Europe.”
Clark as hub
Romualdez said he had been pushing to open up Clark City as a manufacturing hub for vaccines after establishing it as a distribution point. He said they are trying to have United Laboratories jointly manufacture the Novavax vaccines there.
“We knows this virus is not going away anytime soon, so we’d like to have them manufactured in the Philippines—to be cheaper and easily accessible.”
He also sees the day when the country can develop a vaccine of its own, noting projections by scientists that, “we may be getting this virus every 10 or five years; we don’t know, but we have to be ready for this.”
He said Clark already has a facility to start this project and has the virology institute, where they can do a lot of research.
“This will be an exciting thing for the country because not only good for our health but also for our economy. We have a good place where we can develop these vaccines.”