The Philippine government is running out of supply of the AstraZeneca vaccine doses, according to the Department of Health on Wednesday.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is currently awaiting additional documents from China’s Sinovac Biotech on the safety of its COVID-19 vaccine for the elderly as AstraZeneca doses have already run out.
“We have coordinated Sinovac already because we know na kailangan natin sa ating country because naubos na ang AstraZeneca doses natin,” Vergeire said.
“Gusto natin mabakunahan ang mga matatanda, ang ating mga senior citizens that’s why we are closely coordinating so we can get the evidence, so FDA can amend their EUA for senior citizens if ever the pieces of evidence will come in,” she added.
Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez said that the government is expecting additional 2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine this month.
He said 500,000 doses of Sputnik V from Russia’s Gamaleya Institute and 1.5 million doses of CoronaVac will arrive this month.
The Russian vaccines are expected to arrive on April 12 while the Chinese vaccines are expected next week.
