Duterte grumpy with vax delay

I will be direct with you: The President has spoken. He is growing impatient.

Even President Rodrigo Duterte is getting impatient with the delays in the arrival of Covid-19 vaccines this month, Malacañang said Friday, as regulatory and logistical issues slowed down the Philippines’ vaccination program.

The President is hoping to speed up the processes needed for the vaccine delivery, his spokesperson Secretary Harry Roque said as the country trailed some of its regional neighbors that have launched their inoculation drives.

“I will be direct with you: The President has spoken. He is growing impatient,” Roque said in an interview over state-run PTV-4.

The Palace official then said he believes Duterte’s exasperation would hasten the process.

“The vaccines need to arrive. Now that the President has spoken, everyone will move faster,” he said.

The delivery of the Philippines’ initial Covid-19 vaccine doses has been delayed due to different issues faced by government officials and manufacturers, such as the lack of indemnification mechanism in the country.

Vaccine makers require an indemnification agreement to ensure that the government would shoulder the treatment costs of vaccine recipients who would experience severe side effects, thus protecting themselves from potential liability claims.

The Palace has previously announced that 117,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines would be shipped to the country through the Covax Facility by mid-February, but it was pushed back to a later date due to the hiccups on the required submission of the indemnification deal.

The Philippines has submitted the required indemnification accord to Pfizer-BioNTech this week, and is now waiting for documents from the said manufacturer to finalize the Covax supply delivery of Covid-19 vaccines to the country.

Duterte has also certified as urgent the proposed measures seeking indemnity fund for people who might suffer from severe adverse effects of Covid-19 vaccines.

Meanwhile, 600,000 donated doses of Sinovac Biotech Ltd. vaccines from China are slated to arrive in February, but it cannot be delivered yet since it has not received an emergency use authorization (EUA) from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The FDA earlier said it is waiting for Sinovac to complete its requirements before vaccine experts could decide on their EUA application.

The regulatory board has so far authorized the Covid-19 vaccines manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca for emergency use.

Duterte’s administration is banking on his immunization program to spur the economic growth of the Philippines that saw last year a 9.5 percent contraction, the worst in Southeast Asia.

The vaccines need to arrive. Now that the President has spoken, everyone will move faster.

The government has earmarked P82 billion for Covid-19 vaccine procurement, sourced from the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

It is aiming to secure a total of 148 million vaccine doses to inoculate at least 70 million Filipinos this year.

The neighboring countries of the Philippines in Southeast Asia, such as Singapore, Indonesia, and Myanmar, have started to immunize their people against the coronavirus.

The Philippines has so far recorded over 555,000 coronavirus infections and 11,600 fatalities.