A shipment of about 2 million doses of Sinovac vaccine is expected to arrive at 7:30 a.m. Thursday, June 24, 2021, at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) from Beijing, China, on board Cebu Pacific flight 5J671.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque lll, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr., Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko” Moreno Domagoso and Vice Mayor Maria Sheilah “Honey” Lacuna Pangan are expected to welcome the vaccine cargo.
The Department of Health (DOH) said the 1.6 million doses are consigned to the DOH, while the 400,000 doses for the LGU of Manila.
Meanwhile, the three Israeli health experts, who were brought in by the government to assess the country’s vaccination efforts visited the PharmaServ Express cold-storage facility in Marikina City last Wednesday.
The Israeli delegation is composed of Adam Segal, logistics and operations manager of Salomon Levid and Elsein Ltd; Dafna Segol, consultant of Healthcare Policy and Innovation; and Avi Ben Zaken, deputy director general of the Ichilov Medical Center.
They also shared Israel’s best practices when on cold chain and logistics systems, especially when it involves Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. The country is expected to obtain millions of doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in the coming days.
During a meeting with Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) on Tuesday, the Israeli experts advised their local counterparts to create centralized hubs for vaccine storage that will cater to metropolitan areas and other key cities nationwide.
They also proposed the creation of storage hubs for anti-Covid vaccines that will be deployed in remote areas throughout the country.
Galvez earlier described PharmaServ’s cold-chain facility as “world class” that could accommodate different Covid-19 vaccines that require various storage temperature.
Image credits: AP/Aaron Favila
