Malacañang on Friday said those speaking ill of Sinovac vaccines from China did not know any better than the government.

“Iyong mga kritiko ng gobyerno talaga, tira nang tira wala namang mga alam,” Palace spokesman Harry Roque said in a DZRH interview.

Roque said the Chinese vaccines were offered at a “BFF” price to the Philippines and decried claims that Sinovac vaccines were the most expensive among candidates.

“In fact, sa anim o pito na bibilhin natin, nasa gitna po ang presyo ng Sinovac, hindi po siya ang pinakamahal, mayroon pang dalawang brand na mas mahal kaysa po sa Sinovac,” he said.

According to data from Senate Committee on Finance Chair Sen. Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara’s office, two doses of Sinovac vaccines cost about P3,630.

Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. earlier said prices of vaccine doses were confidential, and those circulating in social media were market prices and higher than what were offered to the government.

“We want to caution the public on the prices of vaccines circulating online and in many publications. These are market prices and not the Covax prices that were in our negotiations with vaccine manufacturers,” he said in a statement.

China’s Sinovac Covid-19 vaccines are expected to be delivered by February. The country’s vaccination program will use the said vaccines, as those from Western manufacturers are expected to arrive in the second quarter of the year.

A total of 25 million Sinovac vaccine doses are expected to arrive by December this year.

In recently concluded clinical trials in Brazil, China’s Sinovac vaccines were found to be less than 60-percent effective. It was earlier found to have a 91-percent efficacy rate in Turkey. Meanwhile, Sinopharm’s Covid-19 vaccine has a 79.3-percent efficacy rate. John Ezekiel J. Hirro