Arrival of more vaccines ‘will speed up campaign’

MANILA: A senior Malacanang Palace official expressed optimism that the impending arrival of more vaccines would hasten the inoculation campaign that would result in a significant drop in the number of COVID-19 cases whose alarming surge earlier threatened to overwhelm the country’s healthcare system.

in particular, Carlito Galvez, the vaccine czar, said the drop could first be experienced either by October or November once most of the people living in “highly urbanised areas” like Metro Manila would be vaccinated.

Galvez admited that like most countries in the developing world, the Philippines has experienced a slow start in the inoculation campaign mainly due to lack of vaccines arising from the big purchases by rich nations.

The country launched its nationwide inoculation programme on March 1 by administering a total of more than one million doses of the Sinovac vaccine donated by China and the UK Astrazeneca vaccine which represented the Philippine share from the COVAX facility set up by the World Health Organization ( WHO), according to Galvez.

But he said the campaign suffered from the severe lack of vaccines whose supply started to run short while inoculating the estimated 1.7 million frontliners such as doctors and nurses as well as senior citizens, aged 60 or older, who are on top of the priority list.

Galvez said the country hopes to have a “porfolio” of at least seven vaccine brands this year, which would boost the inoculation programme that could lead to a reduction of COVID-19 infections.

“What we are really seeing is once we have vaccinated a majority of the population in highly urbanised cities like Metro Manila, maybe by October or November, we will see the effect that (cases) will really drop,” Galvez told a media briefing.

He revealed that vaccine deliveries from Sputnik V of Russia’s Gamaleya Institute and the US Pfizer would start shortly.

The official added that an initial 15,000 doses of Sputnik V are to arrive on Monday.