MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte told local government units (LGU) to wait for the deployment of COVID-19 vaccines that recently arrived in the country.
During a televised briefing with some Cabinet members late Thursday, Duterte vowed the immediate distribution to LGUs of millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses amid the “rising demand” for jabs among LGUs and concerns over the short shelf life of the vaccines.
“We will distribute the vaccines as fast as they come to our possession. So ganito yan, mapipilitan kasi ako kasi lahat naghihintay,” he said.
“Sabi nga ni ano (vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr.), noon, it came in trickles. Ngayon, medyo volume-volume na, so maghintay lang kayo because these things must be distributed immediately the fastest way we can do it,” he added.
In his report, Galvez told the president that millions of COVID-19 vaccines have been delivered to the country in the past few days and more are expected to arrive in the coming weeks.
He also mentioned that LGUs have been asking for more vaccine supplies amid the ongoing immunization drive.
“Public acceptance ng vaccine is growing. Maraming mga LGU ang tawag nang tawag sa atin na gusto nilang mag-add ng vaccines. Ibig sabihin talagang yung mga LGUs ay kinakapos na sila ng vaccine dahil marami na pong gustong magpa-vaccine,” Galvez said.
The vaccine czar reported that for the month of May, the Philippines will receive around 7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines and around 10 million doses in June.
“Ang magiging inventory na po natin by the end of June is 21,829,050. So malaki na po ang magiging volume po natin by the end of June, ” he said.
Kayang-kaya na po niyan makuha yung A1, A2, A3 na priority po natin,” he added.
He, however, noted that the Philippines has a current inventory of 7,759,050 doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
“Ito po Mr. President ang challenge natin na kailangan yung natitirang doses na nandoon sa ating inventory, yung 5,155,957 ay talagang maubos po natin ito the soonest possible time,” he said.
“Gumagawa po tayo ng tinatawag nating yung … tinitingnan po natin ang gaps kung bakit medyo mataas po ang ating inventory at gusto nating pababain ito within the next few days,” he added.
Galvez earlier assured that there will be no wastage of vaccines especially those that are nearing expiration following reports that 1.5 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine recently delivered are set to expire on June 30 while over 500,000 doses will expire in July.
Duterte called on local government units to make sure that vaccines distributed to their sites must be rolled out immediately since these have a short shelf life.
“We know that you can do it but see to it that the mechanism, yung infrastructure ninyo sa ibaba, kailangan must be able to come up with the numbers required kasi itong mga bakuna may expiry date ito,” he said.
“Kailangan pagdating sa inyo, mapatakbo na kaagad ang administrative pati local hospital so you will not waste the vaccine because we didn’t deliver it on time,” he added.
“I am just saying this because I do not want to lose the battle here thru negligence… The only problem is if you are not able to administer the vaccines on time because there is a limited period of time for their effectiveness,” he further stated.
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