Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. on Monday said the Philippines needed to administer 15 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines monthly to achieve herd immunity in 2021.
In a meeting with President Rodrigo Duterte, Galvez said the figure was arrived at through simulations done in collaboration with the private sector, specifically with Jollibee Corp.
“So ang target nating jabs per day kailangan po mayroon tayong 500,000 jabs per day. Kaya po natin ‘yan dahil kasi ang atin pong jab sites is 5,000, 100 jabs per day, so kayang-kaya po natin ‘yan,” he said.
Galvez said the government’s target was to administer three million jabs weekly.
But to do so, the country must have 15 million doses per month.
The country has received 4,040,600 Covid-19 vaccine doses since February.
Sinovac vaccines comprise 3.5 million of the total doses.
The country has also received 525,600 doses of AstraZeneca from the Covax facility.
The most recent doses came from Russia—15,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccines slated for test rollout in Metro Manila, which arrived on May 1.
Galvez said 1,658,539 Filipinos had already received Covid-19 vaccines. John Ezekiel J. Hirro