President Duterte to lead vaccine turn over rites for Sinovac Biotech vaccines
MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte will lead Filipino officials in the turnover rites for the first batch of Sinovac Biotech vaccines from China which will be delivered on Sunday, February 28.
“It’s in his schedule,” Presidential Spokesperson’s Harry Roque said in a text message to Malacañang-based reporters.
The Chinese government donated 600,000 doses of Sinovac vaccine to the Philippines. It will be recalled visiting Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi promised to support the Philippine government’s COVID-19 response.
The delivery this Sunday comes at the heels of the approval issued by the Philippines’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) earlier this week of Sinovac’s emergency use authorization (EUA).
Frontline health workers were scheduled to receive the COVID-19 vaccines first although the FDA warned the Sinovac vaccine has 50.4 percent efficacy when administered to medical workers exposed to the coronavirus.
In a related development, the Office of the President said they welcome the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) to use Sinovac for healthcare workers.
Secretary Roque said healthcare workers are the most critical frontline workers in the fight against COVID-19 and they remain the top of the government’s priority list for inoculation. The IATF’s approval of the recommendation of the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group and the Department of Health’s Technical Advisory Group is an assurance that the use of Sinovac is safe and beneficial to healthcare workers.
“We are confident that many of our healthcare workers would get themselves inoculated to boost public confidence in our mass vaccination program against the coronavirus,” Secretary Roque added. (Melo M. Acuña)
(Sinovac contributed photo)
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