Vaccination of 60M to take 3 to 5 years

IT will take three to five years to vaccinate 60 million Filipinos against the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), the country's vaccine czar said on Wednesday.

Presidential peace adviser Carlito Galvez, the former general in charge of strategy to fight the coronavirus pandemic, said the government was capable of vaccinating only 20 million to 30 million Filipinos a year.

"We will do this in three to five years period. At the same, tinitingnan po natin talaga rin

na safe at saka effective na vaccine, kasi lahat pong vaccine ngayon ay ongoing pa rin po ang trial (we are also looking at the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine because the trials for all the vaccines are still ongoing)," he added.

The Philippines is already in talks with several pharmaceutical firms like AstraZeneca and Sinovac Biotech for advanced purchases of a Covid-19 vaccine.

Galvez said the Philippines could roll out its Covid-19 vaccination program from end of 2021 to early 2022.

He bared that it would take a while or until the first quarter of 2021 to find out the results of vaccine trials.

"So, ang best case scenario is second quarter, ang worst case scenario o ang tinatawag nating realistic scenario ay end of the year or early 2022 (The best case scenario is the second quarter while the worst case scenario or the realistic scenario is at the end of the year or early 2022)," he said.

With this schedule in mind,

Galvez said the coronavirus national task force had already come up with a list of 35 million people who would get the vaccine first.

"Mayroon na po tayong listahan na more than 35 million na Filipinos ang nasa priority listings. Iyon po ay ibinigay ngating Department of Health base rin po sa guidance ng ating mahal na Presidente (We have a list of more than 35 million Filipinos who are in the priority list. That was given by the Department of Health, based on the guidance of our President)," he said.

The list includes healthcare workers, frontliners like police, soldiers and essential workers of the social welfare and education departments, poor households, and indigents.

President Rodrigo Duterte earlier said sectors to be prioritized for the Covid-19 vaccines were indigent citizens, medical frontliners, the military and police.

So far, pharmaceutical firms Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca announced that their Covid-19 vaccines have shown encouraging results.

Galvez said the Philippines was considering getting up to 50 million doses from Sinovac Biotech.

The country is also negotiating with a consortium of companies that could provide ultra cold storage facilities required to distribute some vaccines, like those being developed by Pfizer and Moderna.

The next six months, he said, would be spent preparing the logistics and storage facilities.