‘We entreat the Philippine government to continue its focus on the resolution of the COVID-19 crisis in the months ahead and resist the distractions of geopolitics…’
A SHIPMENT of 500,000 additional doses of vaccines from Sinovac Biotech arrived yesterday. That delivery brought to 2.5 million doses from China since February 28: 1 million donated by China and 1.5 million bought by the Philippines from the private Chinese firm.
The Sinovac vaccines allowed the government vaccination program to kick off while awaiting more vaccines from other nations through COVAX Facility.
Senior citizens are also now seeing an early relief to their fear of missing out on the early vaccination as the Philippine Vaccine Panel had given its approval for Sinovac to be used for the 60 years and older in lieu of AstraZeneca vaccines. The DOH has even suspended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccines for Filipinos 60 years and younger.
Henceforth, Sinovac will deliver almost 3 million more doses a month to fulfill its commitment of 25 million by the end of 2021.
The vaccines from other vaccine-producing countries should be able to catch up with their commitments in the months to come to help in the Philippines’ target of inoculating at least 70 percent of the population or some 77 million Filipinos. The government wants to attain “herd immunity” to usher in a better 2022 which will be the crucial year for economic recovery and normalization.
World leaders have been known to comment on the current fight against the pandemic.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres disparaged “vaccine nationalism and vaccine hoarding” while Indonesia President Jokowi Widodo slammed rich countries: “We must give vaccine access to all countries… Poor countries, developing countries, developed countries must be given equal treatment. If not, the pandemic will not end.”
The world’s 100 poorer developing countries have proposed and sponsored, respectively, through the World Trade Organization, the temporary waiver of intellectual property protections or patent rights on COVID-19 drugs and vaccines, which rich countries led by the US and allies Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the European Union oppose.
Dr. Christos Christou, Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) international president, said, “The waiver proposal offers all governments opportunities to take action for better collaboration in development, production and supply of COVID medical tools without being restricted by private industry’s interests and actions, and crucially would give governments all available tools to ensure global access.” It is unfortunate that after 3 million global deaths to COVID-19, there is still opposition to the proposal.
The Philippines can count itself fortunate with the assurance from China that at least one-third of the country’s required vaccine doses would be procured. Sinovac is aiming to produce 2 billion doses this year and the commitment to the Philippines is a small fraction of its ramped-up capacity as announced.
We entreat the Philippine government to continue its focus on the resolution of the COVID-19 crisis in the months ahead and resist the distractions of geopolitics that derail solutions to the complex knots in the vaccine supply chain, the management of the outbreaks and hospital capacities, and the final recovery.
