Amid mounting pressure on the availability of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines, the country will finally get the first batch of its procured jabs with the arrival of one million doses of CoronaVac shots from Chinese vaccine manufacturer Sinovac Biotech today.
President Duterte is expected to grace the welcoming ceremony for the arrival of the Chinese vaccines at the Villamor Airbase in Pasay City.
Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., vaccine czar and chief implementer of the National Task Force Against COVID-19, said that the CoronaVac vaccines are the first brand of COVID-19 vaccines that will be delivered out of the procurements made by the government.
Galvez said that the government has paid 15 percent of the P700 million total procurement price for the CoronaVac vaccines. The remaining 85 percent will be paid once the delivery is completed, he noted.
In April, Galvez said two million more vaccines will be bought by the government from Sinovac. These procurements are part of the 25 million vaccine doses secured by the government from Sinovac, with the deliveries set in tranches per month.
Once the procured one million Corovac shots are delivered, the country’s total vaccine supply will reach 2,525,600 – more than half of which came from donations of Sinovac and the Covax facility led by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The current supply stands at 1,525,600 doses. Of these, one million doses were donated by Sinovac on February 28 and March 24 while 525,600 doses of AstraZeneca jabs were delivered by the Covax facility on March 4 and March 7. (Martin Sadongdong)
