Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said Tuesday that some hospitals in Metro Manila, Cebu, and Davao are the first ones to receive Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines.
In an interview with CNN-Philippines, Vergeire said Pfizer vaccines would also be distributed to other hospitals nationwide aside from the country’s main COVID-19 referral centers.
The government earlier announced that healthcare workers and employees of Dr. Jose N. Rodriguez Memorial Hospital and Sanitarium (Tala Hospital) in Caloocan City, the Lung Center of the Philippines in Quezon City, and Philippine General Hospital in Manila, would be among the first to receive the vaccine.
“It’s not just those four hospitals that we’re going to provide these vaccines with. We are going to provide other DOH-designated hospitals for COVID and that would include specific hospitals in Cebu and also in Davao,” Vergeire said.
Malacañang announced last week the types of hospitals whose workers would be among the first to receive the first supplies of COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer.
These are the following hospitals:
a) COVID-19 dedicated hospitals
b) COVID-19 referral hospitals
c) Department of Health-owned hospitals
d) LGU hospitals
e) hospitals for uniformed services/personnel
f) private hospitals
“We’re talking about 58,500 doses because we need to reserve the second dose of all of these healthcare workers that will be initially given by Pfizer,” Vergeire explained.
Pfizer vaccines to arrive this month
Last week, a representative of the World Health Organization to the Philippines said that 117,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer under the COVAX facility would arrive in the second or third week of February.
“The COVAX has promised that they deliver approximately 117,000 doses within the second or third week of February. These vaccines will be Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines,” Rabindra Abeyasinghe said in a press conference.
Aside from Pfizer, 5.5 to 9.2 million doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine would also arrive in the Philippines by the end of February or early March.
“Last week we had this information that we would have an indicative date [that] it might be coming by February 13. So if ever these will come on February 13, three days after, we will begin the rollout,” Vergeire said.
“The dates that I mentioned are still indicative. It will still depend on the confirmation that will be given by the COVAX Facility.”