President Rodrigo Duterte is set to attend the ceremony on the arrival of the first batch of Sinovac vaccines on Sunday.
On Friday, a simulation exercise was held for the unloading of the donated anti-COVID vaccines.
A Chinese air force cargo plane will be carrying 600,000 doses of Sinovac vaccine to Manila.
Malacañang confirmed that the President himself will personally welcome the arrival of the vaccines.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque said they have been preparing for the arrival of the vaccines in the last two weeks.
From the airport, the vaccine shots will be brought to the storage facility of the Department of Health (DOH).
“Ang storage facility na ‘yon, kaya ang 500 million doses,” Duque added.
The Inter-Agency Task Force or the IATF together with its expert panel have approved the use of Sinovac vaccines against COVID-19 for healthcare workers on Friday.
In a press briefing, Health spokesperson Ma. Rosario Vergeire said members of the IATF approved the recommendation of experts from the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NITAG) and Department of Health-Technical Advisory Group (TAG) who recommended the use of Sinovac for healthcare workers.
“Just this morning we presented to the IATF and we got the approval already. So this would also be presented to the President but right now we can see all of these members approved the NITAG recommendation already,” Vergeire said.
The DOH said that Sinovac “will be beneficial for the healthcare workers.”
Clinical data showed that Sinovac is 50 percent effective in preventing mild symptoms, while it is 100 percent effective to moderate and severe symptoms.
“Given this evidence, the NITAG and the TAG have deemed it sufficient to recommend the use of the vaccine for healthcare workers as it bears to reiterate that our goal for prioritizing healthcare workers for vaccination is to reduce morbidity and mortality among their group while they maintain the most critical essential health services,” Vergeire said.
The Food and Drug Administration’s Emergency Use Authorization also showed that the Chinese-made vaccines are effective in reducing deaths caused by COVID-19.
The recommendation however has yet to be approved by President Rodrigo Duterte.
