The Philippine government was working on securing 3 million Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine doses, according to Galvez.
Vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez, Jr. on Monday said that the national government was working to boost the country’s vaccine supply, this time negotiating to purchase 3 million Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine doses.
In a report on CNN Philippines, Galvez said that Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute had committed only 100,000 doses of the said vaccine, but he added that they’re working on improving that number.
At President Rodrigo Duterte’s weekly address on Monday, Galvez said that Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin and Usec. Dodo Dulay said that they would talk to Russian Prime Minister Sergey Lavrov to see if they could increase it to three million doses.
“Sa ngayon po, nag-usap po kami ni Secretary Locsin at Usec. Dodo Dulay na kakausapin po nila si Prime Minister Lavrov at titignan po nila kung maiangat po nila ng three million,” Galvez said.
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Earlier, Galvez said that the goal was to acquire two million Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine doses. However, the number increased after it was reported that the said vaccine could be used to vaccinate senior citizens.
A team from the Philippines’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was supposed to fly out to Russia from March 15 to 18 in order to finalize its assessment of Gamaleya’s Sputnik V vaccine, which applied for emergency use authorization (EUA) last January.
However, the said trip was canceled after the FDA received the remaining requirements needed for the application.
Earlier, Russia was criticized for an early rollout even before the completion of its Phase 3 human clinical trial as the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine turned out to be 100% effective against moderate to severe disease and 91.6% effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19, according to an interim analysis of the vaccine’s Phase 3 human clinical trial results published in The Lancet.
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