Over 20 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, medical supplies procured via ADB loan project

More than 20 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines and medical supplies were procured and delivered to the country through a Department of Health (DOH) loan under the Asian Development Bank's (ADB's) Health System Enhancement to Address and Limit (HEAL) COVID-19 Project.

In a statement, the ADB lauded the Health Department for the 70% obligation rate of its $825 million total loan budget intended for COVID-19 vaccine procurement and its ancillaries, equipment, infrastructure, and training.

“Within the implementation of the ADB HEAL COVID-19 project, approximately 21.58 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been financed through ADB and delivered to the Philippines, and of this, 6.3 million doses have been given to priority populations as of August 2021,” Sakiko Tanaka, ADB Principal Social Sector Specialist, said in a statement on Tuesday.

Tanaka bared that other achievements of the project included procurement of 70 patient transport vehicles for contact tracing, 90 mechanical ventilators, and 85 portable x-ray machines to aid patient recovery in target local government units (LGUs) and DOH-owned hospitals.

Meanwhile, Health Undersecretary Mario Villaverde thanked the ADB for guiding in the huge loan for the procurement of medical supplies.

“This is the first time that we have handled this big loan with this short time frame, but I'm happy that most of the activities are already ongoing and our disbursements are quite high, and much ahead of most of the original timeframe that we have committed,” Villaverde said.

The DOH also said that the HEAL COVID-19 program will assist the country in establishing pandemic subnational reference laboratories and isolation wards to strengthen testing capacity, surveillance, and infection prevention and control.

“One of the biggest endeavors of this project is to provide timely financing for safe and effective vaccine procurement and logistics,” the health department added. — DVM, GMA News