Duterte ‘impatient’ over delay in vaccines’ arrival

MANILA: President Rodrigo Duterte is geting “impatient” over the long delay in the arrival of vaccines even as the Philippines continued to lag behind other Asian countries in launching its nationwide inoculation programmes to contain the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, his spokesman revealed on Friday.

“The president has spoken. He is geting impatient. The vaccines have to arrive soon, with his pronouncement, maybe the process will be moved faster,” Harry Roque told the government PTV4 in Filipino.

Earlier, officials assured that 117,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine and a donation of another 600,000 doses of Sinovac vaccine from China would arrive in February to mark the start of the government’s inoculation programme against COVID-19.

In fact, one of the officials was heard telling a recent radio interview regarding the arrival of the Pfizer vaccine on or before Feb.14 which, he said, would serve as the government’s Valentine Day’s git to the people

Valentine’s Day has come and gone without the Pfizer vaccine but its arrival, officials claimed, was delayed due to the US drug maker’s demand for an indemnity agreement from the government to protect it from complaints of possible adverse side effects from people who received the shots.

The same was true for China’s Sinovac vaccine which was projected to arrive on Feb.23, said officials who explained the delay was apparently due to the bureaucracy’s red tape because the Food and Drug Administration has yet to grant the Chinese manufacturer the emergency use authorization (EAU) as mandated by law.

In this light, Carlito Galvez, a retired military general appointed by Duterte as the vaccine czar to oversee the nationwide inoculation programme against COVID 19, apologized for the delay, saying: “Have a litle more patience. I apologise because we don’t control the supply chain for the vaccines.”

A bipartisan group of senators also questioned the delay in the arrival of the vaccines which, they warned, were urgently needed to prevent a further spike in the number of COVID-19 infections in the country.

Opposition Senator Risa Hontiveros noted that due to the delay, the Philippines continued to lag behind other Asian nations in the rollout of the vaccines, citing the case of Bangladesh as the most recent example.

But closer to home, Hontiveros pointed out that the country’s fellow members in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) have also taken a big head start to contain the pandemic like Indonesia, Singpore and Vietnam when compared to the Philippines.