PH signs term sheets with 5 vaccine firms for up to 108 million doses — Galvez

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 1) — Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said the national government has already inked term sheets with five vaccine companies it is negotiating with, which will assure the country of up to 108 million doses this year.

"Out of seven companies, we have already signed term sheets with five and we have already locked the supply of 106 to 108 [million] doses," Galvez said Monday in a televised meeting with President Rodrigo Duterte and other government officials.

"By this coming February second week, we are trying to come up with the supply agreements with vaccine manufacturers, and we will also include the two remaining contracts we are negotiating," he added.

Galvez did not specify which companies the government has signed term sheets with. However, he said last month that they are already in "advanced stages of negotiations" with American pharmaceutical companies Novavax, Pfizer, and Johnson and Johnson, Chinese drugmaker Sinovac, and Russian medical research institute Gamaleya.

In total, the national government is targeting to purchase around 146 to 148 million doses from seven manufacturers within 2021, Galvez said. If this goes as planned, some 70 million Filipinos would stand to benefit.

He added that this is still on top of the 44 million doses that the World Health Organization-led COVAX facility has assured the country. Of the doses to be delivered through COVAX, 5.6 million doses are expected to be delivered within the first quarter of the year. The earliest to arrive is a batch of 117,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, which is expected by mid-February.

The Philippines may also be able to access 5.5 million to up to 9.2 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines made in South Korea by late February or early March if it soon receives the emergency use listing from the WHO.

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