The Philippine government has entered into a supply deal with Pfizer-BioNTech for 40 million Covid-19 vaccine doses, the National Task Force (NTF) against Covid-19 announced on Sunday.
“We are very happy to report that the government and the management of Pfizer have finally concluded our negotiations. (Health) Secretary (Francisco) Duque and I signed yesterday (Saturday) the supply agreement for the biggest and most decisive deal we had for 2021,” NTF chief implementer Carlito Galvez, Jr. said in a statement.
According to Galvez, the country’s vaccine czar, shipment of the 40 million doses will begin “after eight weeks starting August” and the shipments will be delivered in bulk.
Galvez added that the vaccine demand had “begun to ease up for many big and rich countries,” allowing Pfizer-BioNTech to agree to a deal with the Philippines.
The procurement of the doses will be financed through a multilateral arrangement with the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
With the latest supply agreement, the Philippines has now secured the delivery of 113 million doses from five manufacturers: Sinovac with 26 million doses, Sputnik V with 10 million doses, 20 million doses from Moderna, 17 million doses from AstraZeneca and 40 million doses from Pfizer.
The Covax facility has also committed to supplying the Philippines with 44 million doses of vaccines.
The total number of doses secured by the Philippines is now at157 million doses, the NTF said.
Additionally, the country’s negotiators are also looking to procure 16 million doses from Novavax and Johnson & Johnson.
As of June 18, 8,050,711 Covid-19 doses have been deployed nationwide. John Ezekiel J. Hirro