COVID-19 vaccination of all medical frontliners won't take a month —Palace

Malacañang on Sunday assured that the COVID-19 vaccination of all medical frontliners who will receive the first batch of COVID-19 vaccines expected to arrive in February will not take a month.

In a Dobol B sa News TV interview, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said all 117,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines from the COVAX facility will be administered to medical frontliners, who are the first in the government's priority list for vaccination.

This will be followed by another batch of around 5 million doses of vaccine from AstraZeneca, which will also cover medical frontliners, he added.

"So inaasahan natin na lahat nu'ng nasa paunang frontliners natin na mahigit-kumulang 1.4 million, lahat 'yan ay mabibigyan dahil 5 milyon mahigit 'yung AstraZeneca na darating din also within the month," Roque said.

The initial 117,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines arriving in the country will cover 50,000 medical frontliners, with two doses each.

"Inaasahan natin sa buong linggo na ito, sa buong buwan na darating ay lahat ng medical frontliners at may immediate na priority ay at least nasimulan na. Pero definitely hindi aabot ng isang buwan para matapos natin lahat ng medical frontliners," Roque added.

British Ambassador Daniel Pruce on Friday said the Philippines will receive nearly 10 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, mostly of the AstraZeneca brand.

This is because the Philippines was among the countries which the Global Vaccine Alliance (GAVI) identified as the first recipients of vaccines from the COVAX facility, he added.

The COVAX facility is a global initiative that seeks equal distribution of COVID-19 vaccines for countries across the globe.

The Department of Health earlier said the COVAX facility will provide COVID-19 vaccines to 20% of the country’s population but only those for 15% will be free. Vaccines for the remaining 5% will be paid by the government.

Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr., however, assured the public that the decrease in the allocation of free vaccines from the COVAX facility would not be a problem, saying the government could still secure additional doses at a reasonable price. —KG, GMA News