Gov’t sees arrival of 50M more doses of Covid vax

MANILA – Around 50 million doses of vaccines against coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) are expected to arrive monthly from September to December this year, which will allow the government to fully vaccinate the adult population by January.

During the Talk to the People briefing of President Rodrigo R. Duterte on Thursday night, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said around 42 million vaccine doses are expected to arrive in the country between August 26 until September 30.

“Actually, we are expecting roughly 50 million doses a month from September to December. If that happens ho, siguro (maybe) by January, we should have been able to inoculate everyone,” he said.

Dominguez said the government has so far secured around 170 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines amounting to about USD1.302 billion.

He said the private sector has secured around 24.9 million doses of vaccines to date.

Dominguez said there is no issue on funding for vaccines to be secured by the government.

“May financing na lahat ‘yan as we have –we don’t have to worry about any– about money here. We have already… all the money ready to be paid for these doses. (These have available financing, we don’t have to worry about money. We have already… all the money (are) ready to be paid for these doses),” he added.

The government aims to fully inoculate 100 percent of adult Filipinos, numbering to more than 70 million.

It has secured financing from multilateral lenders namely the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank amounting to around USD1.2 billion for the procurement of around 106 million vaccine doses, while 40 million doses will come from the Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) facility.