SEAFARERS and other Filipino workers set to be deployed within four months are qualified to receive western brand vaccines that were acquired through the COVAX Facility, the National Task Force against COVID-19 (NTF COVID-19) said yesterday.
NTF Deputy implementer and testing czar Vivencio Dizon, at the vaccination program for seafarers in Manila, said seafarers and overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who have contracts and will be deployed or have to leave within four months have been elevated to the A1 vaccine priority group from the A4 category, which qualifies them for the vaccines from COVAX.
Medical workers and health frontliners (A1), senior citizens (A2), with comorbidities (A3), and indigents (A5) qualify for the vaccines from COVAX.
President Duterte has ordered that seafarers and OFWs be allowed to receive Western-made vaccines like Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson&Johnson. He said the vaccine brands are chosen by foreign employers, not the Filipino workers.
The country last week received 2.2 million doses of vaccines from Pfizer through COVAX, part of which are being administered on the seafarers and OFWs who will leave the country soon.
Dizon said only 1.1 million of the Pfizer vaccines are being used as the other half is being reserved for the second dose. He said there is no definite date yet as to when the next batch of vaccines from Pfizer would arrive.
A total of 5.25 million doses of vaccines, under the COVAX Facility arrangement, have already arrived in the country since March, which includes the 2.556 million doses from AstraZeneca and 2.469 million from Pfizer. The county expects at least 44 million doses of vaccines from COVAX.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the country yesterday received another delivery of 1.5 million doses of vaccines from Chinese firm Sinovac Biotech, its third delivery for the month.
This brings to 3.5 million doses, the total vaccines delivered by Sinovac this month and to 9 million doses — including the one million donated by the Chinese governments — the total of vaccines delivered by the company since February.
The country has received some 14.2 million doses since February.
Dizon said the country is still expecting the delivery 250,000 doses from Moderna, 2 million doses from AstraZeneca under COVAX, and 150,000 doses from Gamaleya Research Institute before the month ends.
In a briefing, Fr Nicanor Austriaco, professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Santo Tomas, said he and his students in the United States are assembling a scientific team to test an oral COVID-19 vaccine.
He said they will be applying for a clinical trial permission from the Philippine government between the third and fourth quarter of the year, with the aim of providing an affordable vaccine for Filipinos.
