11.67 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to arrive in July — Galvez

MANILA, Philippines (Updated 8:41 p.m.) — The Philippines is expected to receive as much as 11.6 million doses of COVID-19 shots next month as wealthy nations vowed to donate surplus vaccine doses to developing and poor countries, an official said.

Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said rich countries have reached an "inflection point" wherein vaccine supplies are higher than demand. He noted that the G7 - a bloc composed of industrialized nations US, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan - have pledged to donate one billion doses of COVID-19 jabs.  

"The implication of this is that many developing and poor countries will receive vaccines through the COVAX (facility)," Galvez said during a meeting of the government's pandemic task force last Monday.

Galvez said the vaccine doses that the Philippines would receive from COVAX may increase from four million to six million "or even higher" per quarter. He noted that the US has promised to donate 80 million surplus vaccine doses this month. The American government would also provide 500 million more doses to poor countries, the vaccine czar added.  

"This will favorably impact our COVAX delivery...Now we are expecting to receive 44 million (doses) this year. It seems that we are assured that we will receive at least 20% and they want to increase it even to 30 to 40%," Galvez said.

For the month of July, the Philippines is expecting the arrival of at least 4.5 million doses of vaccines from Chinese drug maker Sinovac but Galvez said negotiations are ongoing to increase the deliveries to 5.5 million doses.

About four million doses of vaccines from the COVAX facility, one million doses from American firm Moderna, 1.7 million doses from AstraZeneca's plant in Thailand, and as much as one million doses of Russia-made vaccine Sputnik V may also be delivered next month.

"So in July, we expect to receive 11,670,000 doses," Galvez said.

For the month of June, the Philippines has so far received 4,376,820 doses and is expected to get 6.4 million doses more. Galvez said among the expected deliveries are the 500,000 Sinovac doses ordered by the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry Inc.

A total of 250,000 doses of Moderna jabs, 55,000 of them ordered by the private sector, are scheduled to arrive on June 25. More than two million doses of AstraZeneca jabs from the COVAX facility may be delivered within the third or fourth week of June. About 150,000 doses of Sputnik V vaccines may also arrive this month, Galvez said.

Galvez also thanked China for the delivery of Sinovac vaccines which are now being supplied to "emerging hotspots" in the Visayas and Mindanao.

"And also, we have some survey that the public demand for Sinovac also greatly increased," the vaccine czar said.

"They (local governments) are looking for vaccines that can be deployed easily and we are fast-tracking it because we are racing against time," he added.