Manufacturers in the United States, United Kingdom, and China have started sending steadier supplies of COVID-19 vaccines to the Philippines, coinciding with an announcement that the country plans to start vaccine manufacturing operations by the second or third quarter next year.
Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez told a Generics Summit Webinar Wednesday seven companies have expressed interest to manufacture vaccines locally, quoting the Board of Investments.
Of the seven companies, Lopez said four companies equivalent to three projects were progressing.
National Task Force against COVID 19 Chief Implementer and vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez, Jr. himself said: “By the end of October, we will reach more or less 100 million doses delivered to the Philippines.”
Galvez said committed donations from the US-COVAX donation and GAVI (Vaccine Alliance) facility had started to stabilize.
At present, the Philippines has so far received a total 64,942,000 doses. Of this supply, 13,041,410 doses were delivered this month.
The vaccine czar said an additional 22 million doses were expected to arrive by the end of September or in the first week of October.
These shipments include three to five million doses of procured Moderna vaccines and nearly 13 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech shots procured by the national government and donated supplies coming from the US-COVAX donation.
As of Sept. 20, the country has received 36 million doses of Sinovac, 9.59 million doses of Astrazeneca, 9.17 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, 5.25 million doses of Moderna, 3.24 million of Johnson & Johnson, 1.1 million doses of Sinopharm, and 570,000 doses of Sputnik V.
The majority of these doses or 61.91 percent were procured by the national government, 24.74 percent were donated through the COVAX facility, 7.74 percent were purchased by the private sector and local government units (LGUs), and 5.60 percent were donated by partner and bilateral nations.
Out of the 187.6 million doses secured by the Philippines from various manufacturers and sources for this year, a total of 129 million doses of COVID 19 vaccines are procured orders.
The procured doses from Moderna were the result of pooled orders of the national government and private sector.
Meanwhile, supplies from Astrazeneca were purchased through multiparty agreements with the private sector and local government units.