The government expects to achieve its goal of inoculating all Filipinos by January 2022 with the arrival of 50 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines beginning next month, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez has said.
Dominguez said the Philippines already received around 48.89 million doses from March 1 to August 25 while 42 million more doses were expected to arrive from August 26 to September 30, and 103.59 million doses from October to December.
“So actually we are expecting roughly 50 million doses a month from September to December. If that happens, maybe by January, we should have been able to inoculate everyone,” Dominguez said during President Duterte’s Talk to the Nation late Thursday night.
According to Dominguez, there’s nothing to worry about since the government has secured all the financing needed to pay for the said doses.
As of now, he said the government had secured 170 million doses worth around $1.0302 billion while the private sector has already ordered 24 million doses for their workers.
All the vaccines procured by the government will be stored at Pharmaserv Express’ cold-chain facility in Marikina City, the Department of Health’s third-party storage and logistics partner, which can accommodate at least 40 million doses at any time.
The facility also has the capability to accept vaccines that need different storage temperature requirements, from Sinovac and AstraZeneca’s positive 2 to 8 degrees to the negative 18 degrees Celsius required by Gamaleya, and even the negative 80 to negative 25 degrees Celsius temperature requirement of Moderna and Pfizer.
Customs – Ninoy Aquino International Airport collector Carmelita Talusan has assured the preparedness of her team for the arrival of more COVID-19 vaccine shipments.
She said Port of NAIA and Health department officials already discussed the shipments' arrival, and the Customs' plan and initiatives to expeditiously facilitate the importation of vaccines.
"Along with the National Task Force and the DoH, the BOC will continue to observe strict measures to ensure the security and delivery of vaccines," Talusan said.
Seven vaccine brands with more than 47 million total doses have been processed and cleared by the Bureau of Customs since February. These include 25.5 million Sinovac, 7.85 million AstraZeneca, 4.59 million Pfizer, 4.29 million Moderna, 3.24 million Johnson & Johnson, 365,000 Sputnik V, and 100,000 Hayat-Vax jabs.
Meanwhile, the Department of Health is hoping the country's first local vaccine manufacturing site will be established by next year, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire told a media briefing Friday.
She said a feasibility study on the Philippines' "Vaccine Self-Reliance Project" was currently ongoing and is slated for completion by November of this year.
Once the study is out, the official said the government might start with other steps to put up the manufacturing facility.
"{W]e are already doing parallel discussions with foreign vaccine manufacturers and local partners and we're with the Department of Science and Technology and the Department of Trade and Industry on this, so hopefully once the feasibility study is finished, we can already start doing the other things so that we can set it up by next year," she said in Filipino.
In May, Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said several firms expressed their interest to manufacture vaccines locally, but the government cannot disclose their names yet.
These companies are now in talks with potential foreign manufacturers and technology providers from India, South Korea, China, and possibly from the United States and Australia.
If conditions permit, vaccine manufacturing operations may start as early as the fourth quarter of this year or the second or third quarter of 2022.
