Philippines in talks with 4 countries for COVID-19 vaccine

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine government is in talks with pharmaceutical firms from four countries that are leading in the development of COVID-19 vaccines, the Department of Finance (DOF) said yesterday.

During a virtual forum organized by Maybank, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said the Department of Health is coordinating with the US, UK, China and Russia to secure a supply of coronavirus vaccines once these become available.

“So we’re looking at these and we are hoping that someone will or at least one or two of these will come up with… the equivalent of their FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approvals soon,” he said.

Earlier, Dominguez said the government is ready to provide roughly P20 billion for the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines, which will be given for free to at least 20 million Filipinos belonging to the poorest households.

He said the financing plan is to have the Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC) of the Department of Trade and Industry purchase the vaccines.

Government financial institutions (GFIs) – Land Bank of the Philippines and Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) – will fund the procurement of the vaccines through a term loan agreement with PITC.

“PITC will sell the vaccines to the DOH (Department of Health). The DOH will pay PITC over time from their future allocations from the national budget,” he said.

He said this plan is ready to be executed as soon as the DOH chooses the vaccine to be distributed.

Dominguez said both Landbank and DBP are capable of supporting the purchase without needing additional capital from the national government.