PH Targets China Vaccine – Manila Standard

The first COVID-19 vaccines to be used in the Philippines will come from China’s Sinovac Biotech, despite the company’s history of bribing Chinese regulators from 2002 to 2011, a Palace spokesman said Thursday.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque identified Sinovac as the first of three manufacturers that will supply COVID-19 vaccines to the Philippines next year. The other two are Oxford-AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech. “The objective remains that Sinovac[’s Coronavac] It will be the first that we can use to vaccinate our people and it will be in the first quarter of next year ”, said Roque in a virtual briefing at Palacio. Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines would likely arrive in the second or third quarter of 2021, he added. Roque said there was no danger of bribery in this case and said that only safe and effective vaccines could get approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). “The president has full confidence in [FDA chief] Dr. [Eric] Domingo, so that these bribery accusations do not occur here in the Philippines, ”Roque said in a mixture of English and Filipino. He added that the Pfizer agreement was negotiated by the Secretary of Foreign Relations, Teodoro Locsin Jr., and the Secretary of State of the United States, Mike Pomeo, while the government had a tripartite agreement with local companies and AstraZeneca for about 2.6 million doses of your vaccine. As richer nations get more than enough doses to vaccinate their entire population, Roque acknowledged that developing countries may have a supply problem. “But we have our ways. The president will not allow the Philippines to be lost since he himself assured that the vaccine is coming, “he said. In terms of financing, Roque said that the P72.5 billion allocated for COVID-19 vaccines would be enough to buy the necessary doses. The government aims to inoculate between 60 and 70 million Filipinos within three to five years. Roque added that Manila could easily turn to loans from the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank to buy the vaccines. Meanwhile, an infectious disease expert said that allergic reactions reported by those inoculated with Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine in the UK were normal and expected. Many vaccines have “tolerable and manageable” adverse reactions, said Dr. Rontgene Solante, head of the adult infectious diseases unit at Hospital San Lazaro in Manila. “Most of these are really self-limited. They disappear and it is not a serious adverse event, ”Solante said in an interview on ABS-CBN’s Teleradyo. “The important thing is that we have to communicate these side effects or adverse events so that the public does not fear vaccines because that is where it starts, when we do not help them understand,” he added.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Senate finance committee, Senator Juan Edgardo Angara, said that more than 100 million Filipinos could be vaccinated if each vaccine the government buys costs P600. In an interview on the ABS-CBN news channel, Angara said that Congress had allocated P73.5 billion for vaccines in the P4.5 billion budget approved by Congress. He also said that the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act or Bayanihan 2 allocated another P10 billion for the inoculation campaign. So if you add that to the P72.5 billion here in the 2021 budget, you’re talking about P82.5 billion, and if you’re talking about a vaccine that you can get around P600, you’re talking over 100 million. people who get vaccinated, ”Angara said. Angara said the proposed budget for the vaccines would be enough to meet the government’s goal of vaccinating 60 to 70 percent of Filipinos, which Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said would be enough to achieve herd immunity. . Of the P72.5 billion budget for vaccines under the 2021 budget, only P2.5 billion could be funded immediately, as the remainder is deposited into reserve funds. But Angara guaranteed that the unscheduled P70 billion budget for vaccines can be considered “robust.” Senator Christopher Go said that the National COVID-19 Task Force has created six task forces to carry out the country’s vaccination plan. These include: 1. Vaccine Selection and Evaluation Working Group, which will evaluate the vaccine, determine precisely who receives which vaccine and how to distribute when supplies are limited; 2. Working Group on Negotiation and Diplomatic Participation; 3. Task Force on Procurement and Finance, which will ensure that funds are budgeted and allocated for all vaccination activities; 4. Vaccine Cold Chain and Logistics Management Working Group, which will distribute and retrieve vaccines as needed, and purchase, store and distribute personal protective equipment and supplies; 5. Working Group on the COVID-19 Immunization Program, which will enroll providers, evaluate coverage, and develop plans to fill any identified gaps; and 6. Working Group on Demand Generation and Communications, which will develop messages and initiatives to promote public acceptance of the vaccine. The Palace said that the allocation of P72.5 billion in the 2021 budget would be enough to vaccinate 60 million Filipinos. “I think the quantity is sufficient. Under the DOF (Department of Finance) scheme, the P72 billion will not come from the national allocations that we initially need to vaccinate 60 million Filipinos, ”said Roque. He said that in addition to the allocation, the government can use loans to vaccinate the remaining population against COVID-19, which has already infected more than 444,000 people across the country. The Philippines registered 1,383 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 445,540, as nine laboratories did not submit their data on time, the Department of Health (DOH) reported. This is the eleventh consecutive day that the daily count fell below 2000. The top cities and provinces with new cases are Quezon City, 83; Laguna, 75; Manila, 68; Bulacan, 65; and the city of Davao, 61. The DOH also reported that there are 27,781 active cases in the country, representing 6.2 percent of the total. Of the active cases, 85.5 percent are mild; 6.7% are asymptomatic; 5 percent are critical; 2.5 percent are serious; and 0.25 percent are moderate. DOH also reported 133 new recoveries, bringing total recoveries to 409,058, which is 91.8 percent of total cases. The 24 new deaths brought the death toll to 8,701, which is 1.95 percent of all cases.