Caloocan inks purchase deal for 600,000 AstraZeneca vaccine doses

The local government of Caloocan City inked an agreement to purchase at least 600,000 doses of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine manufactured by British firm AstraZeneca.

In a statement released late Sunday, Caloocan City Mayor Oscar "Oca" Malapitan said the order will be part of the local government's vaccination program moving forward.

"Tuluy-tuloy ang ating paghahanda sa pagbili ng bakuna kontra COVID-19. Nakikiapg-ugnayan tayo sa mga pharmaceutical company upang matiyak ng makakauha tayo ng bakuna pag ito ay aprubado na ng Inter-Agency Task Force at Food and Drug Administration," he said in a post on Facebook.

The national government had allocated P73.2 billion for the procurement of the vaccines, with P40 billion coming from multilateral agencies, P20 billion from domestic sources, and P13.2 billion from bilateral agreements.

Meanwhile, the private sector has committed to procuring as much as 6 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from British pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca, half of which will be donated to the Philippine government.

Aside from this, the Philippines over the weekend inked the term sheet to secure 30 million doses of the Covovax vaccine to be manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII), which has partnered with Faberco Life Sciences Inc. as its Philippine partner.

For its part, the FDA has yet to approve any vaccine against COVID-19, but it said it is looking to decide on the Pfizer vaccine by this month.
 — DVM, GMA News