By J. Jala | 07:50 PM February 28, 2021
The arrival of the coronavirus 2019 (Covid-19) vaccines from AstraZeneca will be delayed for a week, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said on Sunday, Feb. 28, 2021.
Originally, the arrival of the 525,600 doses from drugmaker AstraZeneca and University of Oxford is tomorrow, March 1, 2021, Monday.
However, Duque said they received a word from the COVAX facility that it will be delayed for a week.
“Hindi matutuloy dahil ang sabi ng WHO ay nagkakaproblema sila sa supply (It won’t push through since according to WHO they are having problems with the supply),” Duque said in an interview via PTV after the short program in Villamor Air Base where the 600,000 doses from China have arrived.
Duque explained that there was a confirmation yesterday, Feb. 27, that it will arrive tomorrow but they only received the latest update on Sunday morning citing “global supply problem” as the reason for the delay.
Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr., in a separate interview, said they understand the cause for the delay.
“We have to understand that yung mga vaccine like AstraZeneca ay pinag-aagawan po yan sa Europe at yung mga nakita nating developing countries,” Galvez said.
He added that they can wait.
The vaccines from AstraZeneca is the first round of allocated doses from the COVAX facility, from which the Philippines is entitled to 44 million Covid-19 vaccine doses.