MANILA – In the next six months, the Philippines will have a “sufficient supply” of Covid-19 vaccines, as the national government has secured 164 million doses through purchase, with additional jabs coming through the COVAX Facility and bilateral donations.
This was assured by National Task Force (NTF) Against Covid-19 chairperson, Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, and NTF chief implementer and vaccine czar, Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., during the pre-State of the Nation Address (SONA) Forum attended by member-agencies of the Security, Justice, and Peace Cluster on Wednesday.
“We are now awaiting the delivery of 136.1 million additional doses. On track in our vaccination program implementation, we are looking forward to having a better Christmas this year,” Lorenzana said.
Out of the 164 million doses obtained by the country, a total of 28,485,130 doses had been given.
Over 16 million doses were purchased by the national government, 2.2 million by the private sector and local government units (LGUs), 10.2 million doses were donated by COVAX, and 2.1 million doses were donated bilaterally.
The 164 million doses are made up of 26 million Sinovac doses purchased by the government, 40 million Pfizer-BioNTech doses, 13 million Moderna doses, and 10 million Sputnik V doses.
Meanwhile, the private sector and LGUs have purchased seven million doses of Moderna vaccine and 17 million doses of AstraZeneca.
Bilateral donations will provide around two million doses, with the COVAX Facility committing 44 million doses.
Furthermore, the Philippine government and COVAX have reached an agreement on a cost-sharing arrangement for the procurement of five million doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
“Maganda ang nakikitang (We see good) figures of supply and delivery. Kaya masasabi nating (We can say) we are on track. Primary factor is that we have a steady supply,” Galvez said.
“Second, the LGUs’ capacity of administering 500,000 to 700,000 daily. Despite some delays on the deliveries, we were able to breach almost 400,000 [jabs] in a day,” he added.
The country had distributed 15,616,562 doses of Covid-19 vaccinations across the country as of July 20.
The initial dose was provided to around 10.5 million people, and more than five million people have been fully vaccinated.
Vaccine supply transition
According to Galvez, the NTF is now looking beyond the next six months of this year as it investigates ways to assure a more sustainable supply of vaccines until 2022.
“Though we have the 164 million secured supply this year, we are still negotiating for 26 million doses more for our transition to 2022,” Galvez said. “We are now venturing on the possibility of including in our procurement the transition supply so we will not have any zero quarter.”
Galvez also noted that this technique will allow the government to continue its vaccination program while avoiding what happened in the first quarter of 2021, when the country only received roughly two million doses.
“Ang programa ng ating Pangulo ay magkaroon ng (Our president’s program is to have) continuity o annual program on vaccination against Covid-19 so we can ensure the inoculation of all Filipinos,” he said.
“Kaya dapat tuloy-tuloy ang programa (So the program should continue) and we will prepare the transition supply from 2021 to 2022,” Galvez added.
The 26 million doses under discussion are comprised of 10 million Sinovac doses, 10 million Novavax doses, and six million Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses.
