The national government is preparing for the arrival of another batch of Sinovac vaccines on Thursday (May 20).
In a PTV interview with National Task Force against COVID-19 medical adviser Dr. Teodoro J. Herbosa on Wednesday (May 19), he said a few government officials will welcome the arrival of the 500,000 CoronaVac doses from China.
The procured vaccines are estimated to land at 7:30 a.m. at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).
“Bukas darating ang kabahagi ng two million doses ng Sinovac. Nag-deliver sila ng 1.5 [million] a couple of weeks ago, at bukas ang darating ay ang remaining 500,000 doses.”
He clarified the 500,000 vaccines will be the “buffer” for the second doses.
“Ito ay magiging buffer for the second doses. Hindi muna siguro ito ide-deploy kasi ang dami pa nating bakuna na dumating.”
However, once deployed, around 30% of the vaccines will be allocated to the “ground zero” and COVID-19 hotspot areas to contain the disease.
Meanwhile, Herbosa assured that the vaccines are “straight out of the manufacturing plant,” meaning, they have a longer shelf life than that of vaccines delivered a month later or more.
Vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. announced that the country is expecting a total of over 11.7 million COVID-19 vaccine doses in the month of May.
Report from Mela Lesmoras/NGS-jlo
