PSG: Duterte now fully-vaccinated against COVID-19
MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte has been fully-vaccinated against COVID-19, the chief of the Presidential Security Group told state-run People’s Television on Friday.
“Si pangulo po ay vaccinated na po siya at napakahalaga po nito.(The president is vaccinated and this is very important,)” Brig. Gen. Jesus Durante III, PSG commander, said in a report aired on state television.
Durante said Duterte received his second shot of Sinopharm’s COVID-19 vaccine 14 days after he got his initial dose of the jab on May 3.
At the time, the Food and Drug Administration had yet to allow the emergency use of Sinopharm’s vaccine.
But the FDA said that the shot used on Duterte was covered by the permit it issued for the “compassionate use” of 10,000 doses of Sinopharm’s vaccine by the PSG.
The FDA allowed last June 7 the emergency use of Sinopharm’s vaccine following the application of the Department of Health, but this approval was apparently limited to the 1,000 doses already donated by the Chinese state-run pharmaceutical company.
Duterte’s public inoculation against COVID-19 using the still-unauthorized Sinopharm jab drew criticism from the public, which prompted the president to ask China to stop donating the vaccines and to take back the doses that had already been delivered.
Duterte revealed in 2020 that members of his security detail had been vaccinated with smuggled Sinopharm vaccines.
Columnist Mon Tulfo, who said he was seeking a permit to bring in Sinopharm vaccines, admitted in February to taking a dose of the still unauthorized vaccine that he said had been smuggled into the country by a friend.
No one has been made accountable over the smuggling of Sinopharm vaccines, with the FDA’s probe facing a “blank wall” as the PSG has refused to cooperate with them, despite assurance from Malacañang.
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