Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel “Babe” Romualdez said the country could start receiving Moderna Covid-19 vaccine doses in May.
“We’re hoping that we will have the first deliveries by either end of May or early part of June, iyan ang tina-target natin,” he said in a Laging Handa briefing.
In January, Romualdez said the country was assured of 20 million Moderna doses.
Romualdez stressed that the doses would not arrive in bulk.
“Hindi naman sabay-sabay lahat iyong 20 million na ibinibigay natin sa Moderna, almost half of that will go to the private sector and their employees, malaking force iyan; and then the other half will go to our health workers, to all other or the rest of the Filipinos that would be receiving the Moderna; to the local government units and other entities there in the Philippines,” he said.
The Philippine government is “confident” that all doses would be delivered within this year, the envoy said.
Meanwhile, the 117,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine doses from the Covax facility will arrive in the “next couple of weeks.”
About 161 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines are expected to arrive this year. John Ezekiel J. Hirro