495K doses of Sputnik V jabs to arrive in April

MANILA – An initial batch of 15,000 doses of Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccines will arrive in the Philippines on April 25, National Task Force (NTF) Against Covid-19 chief implementer Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. said on Thursday.

The vaccine czar said the first tranche of the vaccines from Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute will be used in a simulation activity by the Taguig local government.

It will be followed by another 480,000 doses on April 29, the same day when 500,000 more doses of China’s Sinovac jabs are expected.

“Ngayon din pong hapon ng 5:55 ay darating din po ‘yung another 500,000 na Sinovac (Today at 5:55 in the afternoon, another 500,000 doses of Sinovac will arrive,” Galvez said at the Palace press briefing.

By the end of the month, Galvez said the COVAX facility may be able to deliver 195,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

In May, 2 million doses of Sputnik V, 2 million doses of Sinovac, and an initial batch of 194,000 doses of Moderna vaccines will be delivered.

The Philippines is eyeing a stockpile of around 7 to 8 million doses of coronavirus vaccine in June, including 2.5 million CoronaVac, 2 million doses of Sputnik, and 1.3 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines procured by the private sector through a tripartite agreement.

The COVAX facility has possible deliveries of 2.4 million doses of Pfizer and more or less 4 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines between May and June, he added.

The Gamaleya National Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology announced Monday that Sputnik V demonstrated efficacy of 97.6 percent, based on the analysis of data on the infection rate of coronavirus among those in Russia vaccinated with two doses.

To date, some 1,397,628 Filipinos have been vaccinated with the first dose – 1,002,460 of them are healthcare workers (A1 priority group), 184,286 are senior citizens (A2), and 210,882 are persons with comorbidities (A3).

A total of 214,776 healthcare workers have received their second doses.

The Philippines currently ranks fourth behind Indonesia, Singapore, and Myanmar in terms of administering Covid-19 vaccines among Southeast Asian countries.

“Ang nakikita po natin ay baka umangat po tayo sa number 3 o baka number 2 once umangat na rin po ang volume ng ating vaccine lalong lalo na sa month of May atsaka June po (We may jump to number 3 or number 2 once the volume of the country’s vaccines increase, particularly in the month of May or June),” Galvez said.

Overall, the country is 15th out of 47 countries in Asia and 42nd out of 188 countries worldwide.