The national government bought an additional 20 million doses of Pfizer coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine from the United States, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. revealed on Sunday, Nov. 28.
Galvez said the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19, which he heads as its chief implementer, already signed the purchase order for the new supply deal with Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine manufacturer.
He noted that these vaccines will be allocated for the booster shots of medical frontliners (A1), senior citizens (A2), and individuals with co-morbidities (A3) as well as the inoculation of individuals age 12 to 17.
“Yesterday , the Pfizer already announced that we already signed the additional 20 million doses to be procured for the purpose of using these as boosters and also for our pediatric vaccination,” Galvez said in a virtual press briefing.
The new vaccine procurement will add to the 40 million vaccines that were bought by the government from Pfizer for 2021, and is set to be delivered starting in 2022.
With this, Pfizer is expected to deliver 60 million doses until next year, making it the biggest supplier of the life-saving jabs in the country.
“Ang ibang mga manufacturer ay on-going po ang negotiation para ang 90 million na itinataon po natin for 2022 ay makukuha po natin (The negotiations with other manufacturers are on-going so that the purchase of 90 million intended for 2022 will be achieved),” Galvez said.
Pfizer is among the brands granted with a revised emergency use authorization (EUA) by the Food and Drug Administration for the booster vaccination of the three priority sectors.
It is also one of the two brands given with another revised EUA for the pediatric inoculation, the other one being Moderna.
Galvez said the EUA for brands that will be used for the inoculation of five to 11 year olds may be released by the FDA by the end of December or first week of January 2022.
So far, the country has already received 141,606,240 doses of vaccines since it started accepting the supplies in February.
This includes 54,030,400 doses of Sinovac-CoronaVac; 36,594,090 doses of Pfizer; 22,028,840 doses of AstraZeneca; 14,607,060 doses of Moderna; 10 million doses of Sputnik V; 3,240,850 doses of Johnson & Johnson; 1.1 million doses of Sinopharm; and 5,000 doses of Sputnik Light.
The government has already administered 81,017,994 vaccine doses as of Saturday while around 60 million doses were stored in government warehouses.
A total of 45,286,049 individuals have been given their first dose while 35,557,409 were fully vaccinated. There were also 174,536 individuals who have received their booster shots.