Sinovac doses seen to arrive in the Philippines on February 28
MANILA, Philippines (Updated 4:10 p.m.) — Doses of China's Sinovac will arrive in the Philippines on the last day of February, Malacañang said Thursday, making it the first COVID-19 vaccine to reach the country.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said the delivery will come in three days. The initial doses of 600,000 are a donation from Beijing, with whom the administration has fostered close ties.
"Three more nights and the vaccines will already be here," he said in Filipino. " What we are planning is for officials to welcome the arrival of the vaccines."
In a separate statement, Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian confirmed that the vaccines will arrive on Sunday. "Both teams have been working round the clock to make it happen," he said, referring to the Philippines and China.
"A friend in need is a friend indeed. The donation of vaccines is another testament to the solidarity as well as profound friendship and partnership between our two peoples and two countries," he also said.
Roque said inoculations could begin immediately by March 1 with personnel of the Philippine General Hospital to be the first to receive it.
While the Food and Drug Administration has issued an Emergency Use Approval to Sinovac, the local regulator advised against using it on medical workers as it yielded a 50% efficacy rate in clinical trials involving hospital personnel in Brazil.
Despite this, Dr. Gerardo Legaspi, PGH director, said hospital personnel have signed uo to receive the Sinovac vaccines.
"Our basis for accepting this is the EUA given by the FDA, because we all know that if it gives clearance, the safety and efficacy are assured," he said, partly in Filipino.
Last week, the PGH said 94% of their employees have registered to receive the vaccine, which was 75% higher than their initial survey in January.
Dr. Jonas del Rosario, PGH spokesperson, said vaccination could start as soon as Monday.
The recent days have seen experts stressing on the public to trust the FDA's standards in issuing emergency use approvals.
This came amid uncertainties over Sinovac's efficacy rate, as well as survey results showing that only 19% of adult Filipinos are willing to be vaccinated.
Findings by the OCTA Research team released on Wednesday showed that 46% of respondents said they would opt out of receiving vaccines, which was not far from the 47% in Pulse Asia's poll just last month.
READ: Less than a fifth of adult Filipinos willing to get COVID-19 jabs — OCTA
Legaspi added: "The important thing to remember here is whatever vaccine comes, we should welcome it because it will make a difference in controling the spread of this infection, and I think the first area where we should control it is in the hospital."
Health workers are at the top of government's priority list of sectors to be vaccinated.
Apart from the 600,000 donated doses of Sinovac, the administration signed a term sheet with the manufacturer for 25 million more doses.
Pfizer and AstraZeneca's vaccines from the COVAX facility were supposedly the first to arrive in the Philippines with officials touting an indicative date by mid-February. Palace officials have sought to play down the delays, with the president's lawyer even saying that a few more days of waiting would not matter.
Just a few days before February ends, the Philippines has over 566,000 coronavirus cases with deaths at more than 12,000. The said count remains the second highest in Southeast Asia, and the more infectious COVID-19 variant is already in the country along with two mutations detected.
Nothing final yet, yet again
The health department and the national task force on the pandemic on Thursday afternoon clarified that vaccination might not actually start by March 1 as the Palace claimed.
In a joint statement, officials said "specific details as to the allocation and subsequent rollout" of the 600,000 doses are still being evaluated by the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group and would need to be approved by the policy-setting IATF.
While they also also confirmed that the vaccines would arrive in the coming days, details on the welcoming ceremony are also still being ironed out with the Chinese Embassy.
The clarification hours after Roque's briefing was similar to how he said government would begin vaccinations by February 15, only later on to backtrack.
Days later, the health department would also say that the given date was not definite.
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