The planned arrival of 15,000 doses of Russian-made Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine was cancelled, sources revealed Wednesday.
According to airline sources, the jabs were not loaded on the Qatar Air commercial flight that was scheduled to arrive by Wednesday, 11 p.m.
The vaccines from Russia are tentatively scheduled to be loaded onboard another Qatar Air flight to Doha, Qatar from Moscow with a continuity flight to Manila that will arrive 11 p.m. Saturday, the sources claimed.
The Department of Health previously said the government was expecting to receive 20,000 doses of Sputnik V from Russia’s Gamaleya Institute, which will be used for practice or simulation. It said that the remaining 480,000 Sputnik V jabs will arrive by end of April.
The Philippines has administered 1.7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine as of Sunday. It aims to vaccinate a third of its population or 50 to 70 million by end of 2021 to achieve herd immunity.
The country is expecting an “accelerated delivery” of COVID-19 vaccines starting next month even as global production is seen to stabilize only in June, Galvez earlier said.
