SOME 500,000 China-made CoronaVac COVID-19 vaccines have arrived, bringing to four million the total number of jabs that the country has received so far, including some 1.5 doses which were donated via the World Health Organization’s COVAX facility.
The latest delivery, which forms part of what the government has procured from China, is the 6th since the first batch came in on February 28.
Taking cue from the evaluation undertaken by the Philippine Food and Drug Administration (FDA), CoronaVac vaccines developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech is best if administered to healthy individuals aged 18 to 59.
Interestingly, the government has considered administering the two-dose China-made jabs even to healthcare workers to whom efficacy is pegged at 50.4 percent and to senior citizens to whom efficacy stood at 52 percent.
The Department of Health (DOH) has recorded 1,028,738 COVID-19 cases as of April 29, of which 69,354 are considered “active” cases. Death toll has bloated to 17,145 as of April 29.
Since the culmination of the vaccine rollout on March 1, the government has only managed to administer the first jab of the two-dose vaccines to one percent of the country’s total population, amid what vaccine czar Carlito Galvez aptly described as scarcity of supplies.
As such, a top health official hinted at government efforts seeking elsewhere other sources of investigational drugs used on COVID-19 patients, following another setback.
Interviewed on the radio, DOH Undersecretary Rosario Vergeire said that one of its biggest suppliers may not be able to deliver 38 million COVID-19 doses as provided for in a deal secured by Galvez in March following recent developments that saw India battling a surge in infections.
Vergeire said that the National Task Force Against COVID-19 is leading efforts to find other suppliers of tocilizumab and remdesivir.
“So ngayon, nakikipag-usap tayo sa major supplier sa Switzerland ng tocilizumab,” she said.
“As for remdesivir, we have spoken to all of the suppliers here in the country at nakikipag-usap din po tayo dahil nga po naputol ‘yung major supplier natin for this drug,” Vergeire added.
According to Vergeire, India “had been one of the major sources of our drugs, especially for these investigational drugs.”
Eight million doses of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin are supposed to arrive next month and another 30 million doses of the Novavax jab within the year.
The Philippines has imposed a temporary ban on travelers – including Filipinos from India to prevent the entry of a “double mutant” coronavirus variant first detected there.