The government has sufficient funds to immunize 60 million Filipinos from the novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19), the Department of Finance (DOF) has assured.
During the public address of President Duterte on Monday, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said they are targeting to secure P73.2-billion budget for the said initiative with the assumption that government will have to spend $25 (roughly about P1,200) per person to have them inoculated from Covid-19.
Of the said amount, he said P40 billion would come multilateral agencies, such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank.
The government is eyeing to borrow P20 billion from domestic sources, such as the Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank), Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP), and government-owned and -controlled corporations.
The remaining P13.2 billion, Dominguez said, will come from “bilateral sources,” or the countries where the government plans to purchase Covid-19 vaccines.
Under negotiation
Chief implementer of the government’s national policy on Covid-19 and vaccine czar Carlito G. Galvez Jr. said they expect to come out with an advance market commitment through a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with at least four vaccine developers before the end of the month.
He said these companies include Sinovac, Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, and AstraZeneca.
He said they are already negotiating with AstraZeneca to purchase 20 million doses of their Covid-19 vaccine.
Since AstraZeneca, Galvez said, is selling its vaccine through a non-profit model, it is currently the cheapest, at only $5 per dose.
The government is now also in talks with Sinovac, through Henry Lim of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry Inc.
Galvez said they are also meeting with representatives of Johnson and Johnson, as well as Pfizer for their Covid-19 vaccine.
“Just in case we are able to get three of these, we will be able to get 60 million [Covid-19 vaccine doses] next year,” Galvez said.
Distribution scheme
Galvez said they already came out with the scheme for the distribution of the said vaccines as soon as these become available.
He noted they will distribute it through a “geographical scheme” wherein they will prioritize areas, which have large incidents of Covid-19 such as the National Capital Region [NCR], Davao, Cebu and Bacolod.
This will allow the government to determine the efficacy of the Covid-19 vaccine, according to Galvez.
In the said areas, the government will prioritize giving the vaccine to the urban poor and other priority sectors such as health-care workers, and government uniformed personnel and their families.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said the government needs to vaccinate at least 60 to 70 percent of the country’s 104 million population to achieve the so-called herd immunity in the population.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines herd immunity as a “concept of vaccination, in which a population can be protected from a certain virus if a threshold of vaccination is reached.”
Vaccine for all—Recto
Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto backed the Duterte administration’s decision to advance the payment for the Covid-19 vaccines, from the initial P73-billion funding set aside to combat the virus.
“President Duterte’s order to the government to prepay the Covid-19 vaccines is correct,” Recto said, reminding that “vaccines are not COD [cash-on-delivery] goods you can order from Lazada. They are not postpaid items, but prepaid.”
More so, he added, “when there is a race among nations to acquire them, with the first batches already pledged to rich nations who have bankrolled their development.”
The senator said “there is even an Amazing Race-kind of hunt among nations for vaccines,” noting that “officials of some of our Asean neighbors were reported to have jetted all over the world to scour for and secure supply contracts.”
In a news statement, the Senate President Pro Tempore also acknowledged that “one good development is that the adults in the [Duterte] Cabinet have gotten into the act, and I hope they will dictate the tempo and not the rank amateurs of PITC [Philippine International Trading Corp.] whose stint in office has so far been unblemished with success,” adding, “Kung nahihirapan ngang bumili ng suka, bakuna pa kaya?”
At the same time, Recto aired hopes that “our supply deal with AstraZeneca will push through, as their vaccine matches our wallet [reportedly the cheapest at $10 per person] and our weather [can be stored at home refrigerators].”
The senator expects that will “cut huge expenses for a cold chain, which the Pfizer vaccine would need as they have to be stored at -80 degrees Celcius [at -50 degrees, polar bears are known to freeze to death]—the infrastructure for which this tropical archipelago does not have.”