(Eagle News) – Some 1.4 million additional doses of Sinovac vaccines are expected to arrive in the country this month, according to vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr.
In an interview over government television PTV-4 on Sunday night, Galvez said that 317,359 doses or more than half of the initial 600,000 doses delivered on Feb. 28 of the Sinovac vaccines had already been deployed nationwide to health workers as their first dose. The second dose will be given after four weeks
The doses were not only administered in Metro Manila, but in various provinces and regions as far as Culion Island in Palawan, Mt. Province, Marinduque, Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), and Basilan.
Galvez said that the 1 million additional Sinovac doses are part of the purchase order already signed by the government, while the additional 400,000 doses are to be donated by the Chinese government.
Once the additional 400,000 doses of vaccine donated by China arrive, the Sinovac vaccines donated by China will be 1 million doses in all since these will be added to the initial 600,000 donated doses, the vaccine czar said.
Galvez earlier said that he is expecting the additional Sinovac doses to arrive on March 21.
The Sinovac vaccines, under the brand name Coronavac, have a shelf life of six months. These can be stored in temperatures between 2 degrees to 8 degrees Celsius. But the vaccines should not be frozen, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which gave emergency use authorization to the Sinovac vaccines.
(Eagle News Service)
