Delivery of at least 56M jabs to PH likely by mid-2021, says envoy

MANILA, Philippines — At least 56 million vaccines manufactured by three American pharmaceutical companies are expected to arrive in the country by mid-2021, Philippine Ambassador to the United States Jose Manuel Romualdez said Friday.

In a forum hosted by the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines, the ambassador said they were able to score deals with Novavax, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson for 30 million doses, 20 million doses, and six million doses, respectively.

“We see initial delivery beginning as early as May,” he said.

He also said they are working with Pfizer, the first company they engaged with. “We hope to receive very soon doses of their vaccine through COVAX facility,” he said.

The Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine was the first approved vaccine of the Philippines Food and Drug Administration for emergency use. It is unclear how many doses of this vaccine would arrive next month as part of the 1 million vaccines initially acquired by the government from various companies.

Romualdez said he was pushing to bump up the vaccine supply to 113 million by the middle of this year.

“We’re doing everything we can here, as far as reaching out to many of these pharmaceutical companies,” he said.

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