Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. on Wednesday said the government plans to start the vaccination of the general population in October as the country grapples with the highly infectious Delta variant of Covid-19.
'We are proposing by October, we commence the vaccination of the general population, including vulnerable children with comorbidities,' said Galvez, who is also the chief implementer of the National Task Force Against Covid-19, during the Kapihan sa Manila Bay online forum.
Galvez said government experts believe the country would already have enough supply of vaccines, and the target population would have been already saturated by October.
The government has so far prioritized the vaccination of medical frontliners, senior citizens, individuals with comorbidities, economic frontliners and indigents.
Galvez reported to President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday 25 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines are due to arrive in September and 29.5 million doses in October.
The September batch includes 12 million doses of Sinovac, five million doses of Pfizer, two million doses of Moderna and one million doses of AstraZeneca.
The Philippines is also expecting one million doses of the Russian-made single-shot Sputnik Light, as well as four million unspecified donated doses through the Covax facility.
Expected to arrive in October are 10 million doses each of Sinovac and Pfizer, three million doses of Moderna, one million doses of AstraZeneca and one million doses of Sputnik Light.
Galvez also included in his report a donation of 1.5 million doses from unnamed countries plus another three million through the Covax facility.
He defended the government's decision to continue procuring Sinovac jabs despite its alleged lower efficacy compared to other vaccine brands.
'Without Sinovac, we could have only vaccinated less than five million people. In that case, hospitals in Metro Manila would have been overwhelmed with a huge number of Covid-19 cases,' Galvez said.
He added all vaccines used in the country were approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization, adding Sinovac has been proven effective in preventing severe Covid-19 infection and hospitalization.
The government aims to vaccinate 70 million people to achieve herd immunity against Covid-19.
Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr.
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