DOH eyes arrival of 1M doses of donated COVID-19 bivalent jabs in the next months

More than one million doses of the bivalent COVID-19 vaccines donated through the COVAX facility and by other countries are expected to arrive in the Philippines in the coming months, the Department of Health (DOH) said Thursday. 

The DOH said this batch of vaccine arrival will all be donations, and will not yet include those set to be procured by the national government.

“While the procurement process of the bivalent vaccines are still ongoing, the DOH is in continuous coordination for the donations through the COVAX facility and other countries. We are expecting more than 1M doses to arrive in the coming months, depending on the negotiations,” the DOH said in a Viber message to reporters.

The agency also stressed that there are still no bivalent vaccines being administered in the country at the present.

Before the year 2022 ended, DOH officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire disclosed that the Food and Drug Administration had already issued an emergency use authorization for the bivalent vaccines of Moderna and Pfizer.

The DOH plans to make bivalent vaccines available in the country by the first quarter of 2023.

Currently, there are 73.8 million Filipinos who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, while 21.2 million have received their booster shots. — RSJ, GMA Integrated News