President Duterte to witness vaccine turn-over
(Eagle News) – More than half a million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines will arrive in the country on Monday, March 1, according to Malacanang.
Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said that 525,600 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines that will be delivered on Monday, were part of the COVAX Facility of the World Health Organization (WHO).
“We are pleased to inform that the Philippines will receive 525,600 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines on Monday, March 1, 2021, around noontime, as part of the first round of allocated doses from the COVAX facility,” Roque said in a statement on Saturday, Feb. 27.
“This forms part of the 44 million doses of COVAX to inoculate 20% of our population,” he said.
Malacanang thanked WHO and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for the early delivery of the vaccines.
President Rodrigo Duterte will also personally welcome the vaccines’ arrival from COVAX Facility on Monday, according to his former aide, now Senator Christopher ‘Bong” Go.
The President will also be present on, Sunday, Feb. 28, to welcome the arrival of 600,000 doses of Sinovac vaccines which were donated by China.
Malacanang thanked all Filipinos, including the country’s frontliners, and the country’s foreign partners who are helping the Philippines secure the much needed vaccines.
“We are grateful to everyone — from our medical frontliners to our fellow Filipinos and foreign partners — who stand by us in this challenging time. Together, we will heal and recover as one nation and one people,” Roque said.
The AstraZeneca vaccines were given emergency use listing by WHO on Feb. 15 this year. Aside from AstraZeneca, WHO had also earlier given emergency use listing to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines against COVID-19.
“WHO’s Emergency Use Listing (EUL) assesses the quality, safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines and is a prerequisite for COVAX Facility vaccine supply. It also allows countries to expedite their own regulatory approval to import and administer COVID-19 vaccines,” WHO explained.
AstraZeneca has a reported efficacy of about 63 percent against COVID-19.
WHO said that the vaccine was reviewed on Feb. 8 by the organization’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE), which makes recommendations for vaccines’ use in populations.
“The SAGE recommended the vaccine for all age groups 18 and above,” WHO said.
“The AstraZeneca/Oxford product is a viral vectored vaccine called ChAdOx1-S [recombinant]. It is being produced at several manufacturing sites, as well as in the Republic of Korea and India. ChAdOx1-S has been found to have 63.09% efficacy and is suitable for low- and middle-income countries due to easy storage requirements,” it explained.
(Eagle News Service)
