Malacañang announced Thursday that the 600,000 doses of Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines are expected to arrive in the country on Sunday, February 28.
“Inaasahan na darating sa araw ng Linggo, itong Linggong ito, ang Sinovac. Kaya excited na tayong lahat,” presidential spokesperson Harry Roque announced in a press briefing.
“Inaasahan at least ang pinaplano natin ay sasalubungin ng mga opisyal ang pagdating ng mga bakuna,” he added.
Roque added the vaccination roll-out could begin the following day.
“If it arrives on Sunday, if I’m not mistaken, then we can roll out on Monday dahil excited na ang maraming kababayan natin,” he said.
The Philippine Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the emergency use authorization (EUA) for Sinovac’s COVID-19 vaccine.
Sinovac is the third drug maker granted with EUA after AstraZeneca of UK and Pfizer-BioNTech of US/Germany. The COVID-19 vaccines from western pharmaceutical companies have been found to have a 70% to 95% efficacy rate.
FDA chief Dr. Eric Domingo said the vaccine’s efficacy is from 65.3% to 91.2%. However, it only reached 50.4% among health workers with COVID-19 exposure.
Sinovac vaccines to expected to arrive on Feb. 28 – Palace
“This should be administered by vaccination providers and to prevent COVID-19 in clinically healthy individuals aged 18 to 59 years old,” Domingo had said.
However, Domingo clarified on Tuesday that health workers could still get the China-made vaccine since FDA only made a recommendation.
“What we did was a recommendation… We don’t say that it’s not illegal or they’re not allowed to use it. We just say, if they’re gonna use it, they should know that the efficacy rate for health workers treating COVID-19 [patients] is at 50%,” he told ANC in an interview.
Earlier, vaccine czar Sec. Carlito Galvez said that he is ready to be injected with Sinovac vaccine along with other local officials who are also willing to increase public confidence.
He said he has high confidence in Sinovac because it is already used in other countries such as Turkey, which has already used 6.5 million doses on the population.
He said even the leaders of Hong Kong and Indonesia have been vaccinated with the Sinovac vaccine in public.