Sinovac assures Philippines of vaccine supply for Q3 2021

Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sinovac has assured the Philippines that it will deliver doses of its COVID-19 vaccine for the third quarter of this year, its local partner said Wednesday.

“Based on the last call IP Biotech had with Sinovac, we’re very happy to share that they have confirmed that there is allocation and there are stocks available for IP Biotech and for the Philippines at least for quarter three of 2021,” IP Biotech Inc. chief operating officer Carlo “Roach” Garrucho said during the Kapihan sa Manila Bay online forum.

“Supply is present. We’d like to bring in and we hope to bring in for the private market.”

Garrucho’s statement came a day after vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. announced that the government had signed a purchase order for additional 10 million doses of CoronaVac vaccine to ensure “steady supply.”

Galvez said the government decided to buy additional shots because the 26 million doses delivered by Sinovac have already been depleted.

“The good thing here is that this is lower than the original price,” he said in a televised Cabinet briefing with President Rodrigo Duterte.

A total of 48,522,890 vaccine doses have been delivered to the country, according to government data as of August 24.

The total shipment is composed of 27.969 million doses purchased by the national government, 3.617 million doses procured by the private sector, 13.297 million shots from the COVAX facility and 3.639 million donated by other countries.

Nearly 13.2 million Filipinos have been fully vaccinated, the government said. — RSJ, GMA News