MANILA, Philippines —The Department of Health said some 50,000 doses of Sputnik V will arrive in the Philippines on Sunday and will be deployed to populous areas seeing an increase in infections.
"There are only a few Sputnik V coming, only about 50,000 doses, so maybe two to three places will be given these vaccines first," Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire told state-run PTV in an interview conducted in Filipino on Saturday.
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"According to the national vaccine cluster, [the vaccines] will be given again to those areas where we are seeing an increase [of cases] and ... [are] highly populous."
The first batch of 15,000 Russian-made jabs arrived on May 3 and were deployed to Makati, Taguig, Parañaque, Manila and Muntinlupa.
The DOH at the time said the doses would be used in a “pilot run” to assess the country’s logistics capability to handle highly-sensitive vaccines which need to be stored at -18 °C and be kept as a frozen solution.
The Philippines received a second shipment of 15,000 doses from Russia on May 12 which were deployed to the same Metro Manila cities.
Vergeire said no serious adverse effects were recorded from the 30,000 Sputnik V doses that have already been administered.
Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez. Jr. earlier this month announced that the Philippines secured a total of 10 million vaccines from Russia's Gamaleya Research Institute with a contract expandable for up to 20 million doses.
He also said 1.3 million of the total 10 million Sputnik V doses were arriving this month but the May 30 delivery will bring the total number of jabs received from the Russian drugmaker up to a mere 80,000.
The first shipment of Sputnik V to the Philippines was delayed twice due to logistical challenges, specifically the lack of direct flights from Russia and the difficulty of keeping the shots in sub-zero temperatures.
— Bella Perez-Rubio with reports from Gaea Katreena Cabico and Xave Gregorio