Quezon City can no longer afford to open all 12 mass vaccination sites because the supply of vaccines for the first dose is running low.
“We have limited supply now. It is not enough for us to open all of our sites. The concentration of these vaccines will be dedicated to nursing homes, persons that cannot go out of their house, bedridden, PWDs (persons with disabilities), may malalang comorbidities, iha-house-to-house po natin sila,” said Joseph Juico, co-chairman of QC COVID-19 Vaccination task force.
So senior citizen Claudia Lao has no choice but to wait for the next batch.
“Siyempre takot na rin tayo. Kailan pa? Eh doon sa barangay namin, wala talaga,” she said.
But on Thursday, 500,000 doses of Sinovac Biotech’s CoronaVac vaccine arrived in the country.
“Karamihan dito more or less 100,000 po mapupunta sa Metro Manila. Matatapos po ito within 2 to 3 days ang deployment at inaasahan po natin na iyong administration nito is within 1 week matatapos po kaagad,” said vaccine czar Carlito Galvez.
The first batch of the Russian COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V is also set to arrive on Sunday.
According to Galvez, the shipment will contain 15,000 doses first but will be followed by 485,000 doses on April 29.
The Philippines plans to buy about 20 million doses of Sputnik V.
Also read: FDA approves Sinovac for senior citizens
500,000 doses of Sinovac vaccine arrived amid decreasing supply
It is expected that before the end of the month or early May, 195,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine will arrive from the COVAX facility.
Up to 6 brands of COVID-19 vaccines can be used in the Philippines after the Food and Drug Administration approved the emergency use authorization (EUA) of 2 more vaccines.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Tuesday that it has already given the EUA the Janssen vaccine of American company Johnson & Johnson and Covaxin of Bharat Biotech from India.
Prior to that, the EUA had previously granted to Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Sputnik V, and Sinovac.
The Indian firm Bharat Biotech needs to submit more documents for its COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin before it would be allowed to enter the Philippines.
The Philippine FDA only granted a conditional emergency use authorization (EUA) to Covaxin because it has yet to submit documents such as a certificate of good manufacturing practice and a risk management plan.