[Moderna] Bivalent vaccines available in Philippines by December – DOH

[Hamartia Antidote]

Bivalent vaccines available in Philippines by December – DOH

Bivalent vaccines against COVID-19 are expected to become available in the country by December, according to Department of Health officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire.

www.philstar.com

MANILA, Philippines — Bivalent vaccines against COVID-19 are expected to become available in the country by December, according to Department of Health officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire.

“We have been negotiating with the manufacturers of these bivalent vaccines for over a month already and we are set to sign our term sheets with Moderna,” Vergeire said in an interview with “The Chiefs” on Cignal TV’s One News.

“They (Moderna) have committed with us to make it available here and they said they can produce and they can deliver as early as end of November,” she said.

“We have to go through our processes. There are still regulatory processes that we need to undertake, like authorization from the Food and Drug Administration, plus we need the Health Technology Assessment Council’s positive recommendation based on law,” she stressed.

“We have the funds and we are ready to procure and our estimate is that if we will be able to secure and complete the regulatory clearances, by December we have the bivalent vaccines already,” Vergeire said.

“It’s going to be given for free to our eligible population. Now as to the population that we will provide, we still need to see how much we can procure, how much can be delivered so that we can assess and determine the prioritization that will be done,” she told The Chiefs.

Vergeire said the DOH has conducted a survey to verify assumptions, given that people now aren’t availing themselves of booster shots and would rather wait for the bivalent vaccines.

“Based on the result of our survey, it turned out that 97 percent of those who already received two boosters would also want to receive the bivalent vaccine. Meanwhile, 96 percent of those who had their first booster shots would also want to receive the bivalent vaccine,” said Vergeire.