300k doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to arrive June 21

Philippine Ambassador to the United States, Jose Manuel Romualdez, said Monday that at least 300,000 doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine are expected to arrive in the country by June 21.

“June 21 is the target date of delivery for the first batch of Moderna vaccines. It will be 300,000 doses as a start,” Romualdez said in a CNN Philippines interview.

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“We will be get more by July, August, and September.”

The Philippines bought at least 20 million doses of vaccine from America’s Moderna. The national government paid for the 13 million while the private sector paid for the seven million.

Early this month, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorization (EUA) for Moderna’s COVID-19 .

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The vaccine could be given to persons aged 18 and above.

In November 2020, Moderna announced its vaccine was 94.5% effective in a preliminary analysis of a large late-stage clinical trial.

“In a trial of 30,000 subjects, where we already received some 95 cases of infections. In those, 90 of them were in the population that did not receive the vaccine, and only five were the only infections that did. That is where the 94.5 percent protection comes from,” Noubar Afeyan, the firm’s co-founder and chairman, said.

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300k doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to arrive June 21

The Philippines is one of the beneficiaries of the COVAX Facility, which aims to ensure equal access to COVID-19 vaccines.

“I have been told that we will be the beneficiary of that [US donation],” he said.

“As soon as it is available, it will be delivered to us,” he added.

Romualdez also said the government is securing booster shots from American firms Pfizer and Moderna by the end of 2021.

“We are working on getting a booster shot from Moderna and Pfizer by the end of the year, which goes well with any other prior vaccine,” he said.

“This could happen by end of the year or early next year.”

The National Task Force (NTF) against COVID-19 said the government vaccinates an average of 162,513 COVID-19 people daily.

NTF added that as of May 22, the Philippines had given a total of 4,097,425  doses nationwide.