The Philippines, reeling under coronavirus infections and deaths since March, is looking at possible deals with various COVID-19 vaccine producers while US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has promised to help Manila get back a “fraction” of the 10 million doses of Pfizer vaccine, Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said Saturday.
The government, accused by some sectors of missing an opportunity to have Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine delivered by January next year, is targeting to secure a deal with various manufacturers in the next few weeks.
“We are eyeing to strike a deal with vaccine manufacturers by the end of this year or early January 2021,” National Task Force Against COVID-19 Chief Implementer and vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said in a statement Saturday.
At a briefing on Saturday morning, Galvez said the government was just waiting for the validation and confirmation from Pfizer headquarters.
Meanwhile, Locsin said “somebody dropped the ball” which affected the shipment of 10 million doses of Pfizer vaccine to the country by January next year.
Aside from Pfizer, Locsin said the government was also working to secure vaccines from American biotechnology firm Moderna.
Locsin previously disclosed that the Philippines was supposed to secure some 10 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine as early as January 2021.
Senator Panfilo Lacson, citing information from Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel Romualdez, later on said it was Health Secretary Francisco Duque III who failed to work on the necessary documentary requirement, namely, the Confidentiality Disclosure Agreement.
Galvez, however, insisted the Philippines did not miss an opportunity to secure doses of COVID-19 vaccines, noting that “negotiations on many occasions will reach stalemate and gridlock when legal challenges, public interest and safety are at stake.”
Duque, in his defense, said that if ever he was at fault, it was because he chose to “err on the side of caution,” saying he wanted to know more about Pfizer’s vaccine but the absence of a CDA kept the pharmaceutical firm from disclosing data.
The Health chief also said the required CDA by Pfizer was originally intended to be signed by the Office of the President and not the Department of Health.
Duque said the DOH could not sign the CDA on behalf of the whole government which was why the Department of Science and Technology and Galvez had signed the CDA separately.
Nevertheless, Galvez said the Philippines was now in the advanced stages of negotiations with various vaccine manufacturers.
“While our vaccine expert panel and the Food and Drug Administration continuously assess the safety and efficacy of each of the candidate vaccines, we are also trying to get the best price possible to ensure cost-efficiency and equitable access for the poor,” he said.
“Payments will only be done once all the regulatory requirements for Emergency Use Authorization from FDA and the originating country are secured,” he added.
The vaccine czar expressed optimism that initial deliveries will be made by March of next year and the inoculation program may commence within that period “given the timeline of production.”
“I will say it again that all vaccines will pass FDA approval to ensure safety and efficacy,” he said.
Galvez noted that the delivery of all vaccines regardless of country of origin and manufacturer would be made in tranches or on a staggered basis, the same mode of delivery for developed countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada.
He also clarified that the prices released to the media are all commercial prices.
“These are not the negotiated prices given to us by the companies,” the vaccine czar said.
“The negotiated price of a dose of vaccine is mostly at a cost since most of the companies believed that during this pandemic our moral obligation and global interest is to save lives and humanity,” he added.
The vaccine czar explained that negotiations on prices are guided by the Department of Finance in allocating P73 to P75 billion for the inoculation of 60 to 80 million Filipinos and which will allow the country to achieve the WHO’s standard for herd immunity.
“Likewise, we hope to seal deals similar to the tripartite agreement we signed with Astrazeneca, wherein 2.6 million doses of the vaccine were sold to the private sector at no profit, which were in turn, donated to the government at no cost,” Galvez said.
“Again, we want to assure the public that the government will not compromise our vaccine selection, negotiation, and procurement process. No deal will be finalized without the corresponding regulatory approval from their country of origin and Emergency Use Authorization from our FDA,” he said.
Meanwhile, party-list lawmaker Mike Defensor said the country’s procurement of COVID-19 vaccine “to save lives and livelihood is at the mercy of foreign lenders.”
“While our officials are quarreling on whether we missed the bus or dropped the ball on the Pfizer vaccine, funding for our procurement remains uncertain,” Defensor said.
Defensor, vice chair of the House committee on health, added: “Thanks to Congress, which, ironically, opted to prefer loans mostly from foreign sources, instead of the taxes we pay to the government, to fund the purchase of vaccines against the highly infectious new coronavirus.”
He added the bicameral conference committee (bicam) that drafted the final version of the proposed P4.5-trillion 2021 national budget maintained the vaccine procurement fund at P2.5 billion, as proposed by Malacañang.
“Assuming we can get the injections at $10 (P500) per dose, which would probably be the lowest price, and two doses are needed for complete immunization, P2.5 billion is good for 2.5 million Filipinos at an average of P1,000, or just 10 percent of the government’s initial vaccination target of 25 million to 30 million of our population,” he said.
According to Defensor, the P2.5 billion “is the only vaccine procurement allocation that is sure of tax revenue support, meaning it will be funded out of people’s taxes as it is part of programmed appropriations in the proposed budget for next year.”
To console a public expecting to be inoculated next year so it could soon return to normal life, the bicam relegated P72 billion for vaccines and related expenses like storage to the “un-programmed” part of the budget, he said.
“An un-programmed appropriation is available only if there are excess tax collections, there is a new tax source or there are loans. Since it is unlikely that there would be excess collections or a new tax because of the pandemic, borrowings will be the funding source for vaccine procurement,” he said.
However, Defensor noted the assurances of Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez, Malacañang, and certain bicam members and leaders of Congress that loans would indeed be available for vaccinating a large part of the population against Covid-19.
“Nonetheless, the preference for borrowings over sure tax revenues to get our weary people out of this pandemic speaks volume of our sense of priorities,” he said.
He said the bicam report shows that the panel approved realignments in the budget totaling P182.8 billion, which adjustments were later ratified by the two chambers of Congress.
Almost P183 billion was juggled. And none of that huge amount, not even a centavo, went to vaccine acquisition,” he said.
