The Philippines expects to receive about 30 million Covid-19 vaccine doses this month and next, according to its vaccine czar, who also apologized for supply delays that halted inoculation in some cities.
About 16 million doses will arrive in July that would include vaccines donated by Japan and US, those committed under Covax as well as shots procured by companies, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez said in a recorded briefing aired Tuesday night. Around 14 million doses are expected in August, he said.
Several cities in the Philippine capital region have halted their first-dose vaccination programs as supply from the national government runs out. Galvez said delays in supplies are unavoidable and usually occur in the first and last weeks of the month as vaccine manufacturers prepare for deployment.
The Philippines is battling one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in Asia, with nearly 1.45 million cases and more than 25,000 deaths as of July 6. Only about 2.9 million individuals or less than 3 percent of its population have been fully vaccinated, risking efforts to reopen an economy that remained in recession in the first quarter.
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Around 3 million Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses from the US is expected this month, Galvez said. By end-August, the Philippines would have received a total of 47 million doses from various manufacturers, he said.
The vaccination roll out is picking up with 1.26 million shots administered in the first five days of July compared with 5.46 million doses for the entire month of June, Galvez said.
Border control protocol—which includes a 10-day facility quarantine, a Covid-19 test on the seventh day and four more days of quarantine at the local government level for people arriving in the Philippines—has prevented the delta variant in households and communities, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said in the same briefing.
Sinovac Biotech Ltd. has sought to amend its emergency use authorization to include children from three to 17 years old, Food and Drug Administration head Eric Domingo said.
Galvez also said the government is now targeting to increase the number of fully vaccinated individuals to 5 million to 7 million this month to boost their protection against Covid-19.
In a related development, the Department of Health (DOH) said that they welcome the statement of OCTA Research that the National Capital Region may be “Delta resilient” in a few months’ time based on the current number of the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine that were administered to the people.
“We welcome the statement of OCTA research however, we would like to remind our kababayan not to be complacent against the threat of the Delta variant,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said.
From the start, Vergeire stressed that they have aimed to prevent the entry of the Delta variant into the communities through “stronger border control.”
“The existing quarantine protocols are intended to prevent or delay the entry of the Delta variant or any other variant of concern. At the same time, we are pushing down our daily cases through the stronger implementation of the PDITR [Prevention, Detection, Isolation, Treatment, and Reintegration] strategies and the minimum public health standards in Local Government Units [LGUs], workplaces, and establishments,” she stressed.
Galvez added they are targeting to administer 5 million to 7 million second Covid-19 vaccine doses before the end of the month to address such gap.
Of the 9.04 million people who got their first Covid-19 dose, only 2.92 million got their second dose, he said. Bloomberg News with Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco and Samuel P. Medenilla