Philippines to order 3M doses of Sputnik V vaccine for April — Galvez

The Philippines will purchase three million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine after it secured an emergency use authorization (EUA) from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. said Friday.

Galvez told a Palace news conference that the procurement will be for April.

“We will have a meeting this coming Tuesday. And our initial request is for them to deliver more or less three million doses this coming April [and] May,” he said.

“We also have an ongoing negotiation with them to allow LGUs (local government units) to buy the vaccine.”

Sputnik V is a two-dose vaccine, thus the initial order will be enough to cover 1.5 million individuals.

FDA Director General Eric Domingo said the vaccine, which showed 91.6% efficacy in a late stage trial, can only be used on individuals aged 18 years and older.

Sputnik V is the latest vaccine to receive an EUA in the country after the vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca, and Sinovac.

The Philippines began its mass immunization program this month with medical frontliners as the top priority.

It has so far received 1,125,600 doses from China’s Sinovac and British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca. — RSJ/KBK, GMA News