Philippines receives 400K more donated Sinovac doses
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines received Wednesday the second batch of COVID-19 shots donated by China, giving the country additional vaccine supplies needed to inoculate the priority populations.
An additional 400,000 doses of CoronaVac, the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Chinese drugmaker Sinovac Biotech, arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Wednesday morning.
The shipment is in addition to the initial 600,000 doses that arrived last February 28.
In a joint statement, the Department of Health and the National Task Force against COVID-19 said the arrival of the additional CoronaVac doses will be “instrumental” in the government’s vaccination program as the country battles another surge in infections.
“The arrival of these vaccines could not have occurred at a more opportune time considering the continued rise in cases, which in turn increases the need to inoculate more high risk individuals as soon as possible,” Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said.
Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian, who welcomed the vaccines at NAIA, said he is hoping the shipment “will contribute to speed up the mass vaccination in the country so that we will win over the war against the virus and recover the economy.”
The country’s inoculation program started on March 1 with the doses donated by China. It also received initial 526,000 doses of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca through the COVAX Facility.
Given the limited supply, only frontline healthcare workers are prioritized to get vaccinated at the moment. But a number people not in the priority list, including mayors, have jumped the vaccination line.
Some 336,656 Filipinos have been vaccinated against COVID-19 as of March 20.
The country is expected to receive one million CoronaVac doses—its first purchase—by the end of the month. Additional 979,200 doses of AstraZeneca jabs are also seen to arrive in the country by end-March.
The government aims to inoculate between 50 and 70 million Filipinos this year alone.
The national government has so far secured two official deals for COVID-19 vaccine supplies in the Philippines, one with Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac and another with the Serum Institute of India.
Watch this space for bite-sized developments on the vaccines in the Philippines. (Main image by Markus Spiske via Unsplash)
Health Officer-in-Charge Maria Rosario Vergeire says the general population may now get their second booster jab.
"We're just waiting for the release of implementing guidelines, then we'll start rolling out our second booster for the general population," she says. — Gaea Katreena Cabico
Amid questions on vaccines being administered, the Department of Health assures the public all doses are safe and effective as the “process of extending shelf life goes through thorough stability studies.”
“The government ensures that every vaccine that is injected with an extended shelf life has gone through studies, and is still safe and effective against COVID-19,” it adds.
Government must increase vaccination capacity across the Philippines in anticipation of a surge of COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant of the corona virus, Sen. Risa Hontiveros says.
She says local government units and the private sector can work together to put up more vaccination centers and deploy more vaccination teams to get more people inoculated against COVID-19.
"The active COVID cases have nearly doubled in three days. The positivity rate is almost four times the ceiling set by the World Health Organization. Huwag na nating hintayin na sobrang lumala pa ang sitwasyon bago tayo gumawa ng paraan para mapabilis ang ating pagbabakuna."
FDA chief Eric Domingo says that its agency has given emergency approval for the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11.
The United States immunized around 900,000 children aged five-to-11 against Covid in the first week the Pfizer vaccine was authorized for them, a White House official says Wednesday.
Roughly 700,000 more have made appointments at pharmacies, White House Covid coordinator Jeff Zients tells reporters.
"The program is just getting up to full strength," he says, adding most of the shots were given in the last couple of days alone. — AFP
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