MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines has secured 20 million doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine in a tripartite deal with the United States biotech company and the private sector.
The Philippine government, represented by vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr., and the private sector, represented by International Container Terminals Services, Inc. chairman Enrique Razon, inked Thursday a deal to procure the vaccines.
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Under the agreement, the government will be getting 13 million doses of the vaccine, while the private sector would receive the remaining seven million doses which it will use for its frontline workers.
It is not clear when these vaccines will arrive, although Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel Romualdez previously indicated that some 20 million doses of Moderna’s jabs would arrive by the end of May or early June.
Taken in two doses, Moderna has reported a 94% efficacy rate for its candidate vaccine and was approved for emergency use by US regulators in late 2020.
The Philippines is targeting to secure enough vaccine doses from different manufacturers to cover 70 million of its 108 million population to achieve herd immunity and roll back coronavirus restrictions that plunged its economy to its lowest on record.
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The country, however, has yet to receive a single vaccine dose it purchased as the vaccines it has received so far have only come from donations from China and the World Health Organization-led COVAX facility.
The country’s vaccination program has also been criticized for its slow pace, with only 269,593 medical frontliners and health workers getting inoculated more than a month since it started.
The Philippines has one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in Asia and is seeing a spike in COVID-19 cases in recent days.