Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 23) — The National Task Force Against COVID-19 assures steady supply of COVID-19 vaccines in the next six months after the government secured 164 million doses through procurement and donations.
In a statement, the task force said almost 28 million doses have already arrived in the country. Of these, 13.2 million doses were purchased by the government, 2.2 million by the private sector and local governments, 10.2 million doses were from the World Health Organization-led COVAX facility, and 2.1 million from bilateral donations.
Of the total secured supply, 89 million doses were procured by the government from vaccine brands Sinovac, Pfizer, Moderna, and Sputnik V; 24 million doses were purchased by the private sector and LGUs from Moderna and AstraZeneca; 2 million doses were from bilateral donations; 44 million from the COVAX facility; and 5 million from a cost-sharing agreement between the Philippine government and COVAX.
“We are now awaiting the delivery of 136.1 million additional doses,” NTF Chairman Delfin Lorenzana said. “On track in our vaccination program implementation, we are looking forward to having a better Christmas this year.”
NTF Chief Implementer and vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. also assured that the country is on schedule with its targets given the steady supply. He also noted that LGUs are able to administer more than 400,000 shots per day.
For next year, Galvez said the government is negotiating for 26 million doses to serve as transition supply. It is composed of 10 million Sinovac shots, 10 million Novavax doses, and 6 million doses from Johnson & Johnson.
“We are now venturing on the possibility of including in our procurement the transition supply so we will not have any zero quarter,” he said.
Galvez noted that this will allow the government to continue its immunization program and avoid what happened in the first quarter of 2021 when the country had only 2 million doses on hand.
Currently, about 16 million doses have been administered, wherein over 5 million people have received their two-shot vaccines.
However, this is still far from the goal of vaccinating 70 million Filipinos to achieve herd immunity by yearend.
