Russian Ambassador to Manila Marat Pavlov said Moscow was in the final stage of negotiation with Filipino partners to manufacture Sputnik V vaccines in the Philippines.
“Russia signed manufacturing agreements with foreign partners in China, Egypt, the Republic of Korea, Turkey, Serbia, and Argentina, which have already launched the production of Sputnik V. With the Philippines, we are also in the final stage of negotiation and we hope to conclude it shortly,” Pavlov said during an online Vaccine Summit on Friday.
The ambassador’s announcement came a day before the arrival of the first batch of 15,000 doses of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine yesterday after a delay due to “logistics” problems.
The Philippines is negotiating for 20 million Sputnik V doses, which has a sensitive storage requirement.
Saturday’s vaccine delivery raised the country’s total vaccine stock to over 4 million, about 1.8 million of which have been administered as of April 27.
The government has tapped medical cold chain firm Pharmaserv Express for the storage and distribution of the Sputnik V doses.
National Action Plan Against COVID-19 chief implementer and vaccine czar Sec. Carlito Galvez Jr. said the Department of Health has entered into a third-party partnership with PharmaServ Express for the storage and delivery of COVID-19 vaccines from the airport to cold-chain facilities and to various vaccination centers in the country.
The company, Galvez said, has the capability to accept a vaccine brand like Sputnik V which must be stored at minus 18 degrees Celsius or below to maintain its stated 92 percent efficacy.
With this development, Pavlov expressed hope that local government units in the country would be actively involved in the procurement and distribution of the Russian-made jabs.
Sputnik V is the world’s first registered vaccine against COVID-19.
“The vaccine is based on human adenovirus vector technology. The technology has been widely used for more than 40 years in making drugs and vaccines, so it is absolutely safe,” Pavlov said.
COVID updates
The Philippines on Saturday reported 9,226 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total tally to 1,046,653, as four laboratories failed to submit data on time, the Department of Health reported.
The DOH reported that active cases in the country stood at 72,248, which is 6.9 percent of the total.
The DOH also announced that total recoveries climbed to 957,051 after 10,809 more patients recovered from the illness.
The death toll increased to 17,354 with 120 new fatalities reported.
Fake vaccines
The Department of the Interior and Local Government warned local government units and the public against “fake Pfizer” vaccines.
In a statement, DILG Secretary Eduardo Año called on all local LGU officials down to the barangay level to be on guard after the World Health Organization issued an alert that possibly fake Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines were out in the market.
Particularly, Año cautioned local executives about their “vaccine sources or chain of supply and ensure that all medical products particularly COVID-19 vaccines must be obtained from authorized/licensed suppliers.”
Recently, WHO issued a global medical product alert on a falsified COVID-19 vaccine with the product name “BNT162b2” which claims to be manufactured by Pfizer Biontech.
Contact tracers
The Department of Labor and Employment and the Department of Interior and Local Government forged an agreement with Metro Manila Development Authority for the hiring of contact tracers through its Tulong Panghanapbuhay para sa ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (TUPAD) program.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said the memorandum of agreement aimed to employ close to 6,000 contact tracers that would be tasked to help stop the spread of COVID-19 infections in the country.
“The government believes contact tracing is one of the key measures to arrest the mounting number of COVID-19 infections in the country,” Bello said.
Bayanihan effectivity
A member of the Independent Bloc at the House of Representatives has filed a bill further extending the validity and effectivity of the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act (Bayanihan 2) until end-December this year.
Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte, in filing House Bill 9196, said the extension would enable the government to continue implementing its recovery and stimulus measures to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on the economy.