(UPDATED) Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Francisco Duque III and vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. on Wednesday, January 20, 2021, inspected cold storage facilities in preparation for the arrival of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) vaccines.
Duque and Galvez first visited United Laboratories Inc. (Unilab) in Biñan, Laguna.
Unilab’s cold storage facility within the Unilab Pharma Campus can store around five million doses of vaccine at a temperature of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius. It has been identified as one of the major storage hubs for Covid-19 vaccines.
“When we go into partnership with the government for the warehousing and logistics for the Covid-19 vaccines, I can assure it is going to be done as a service and not as a business,” said Jose Maria Ochave, Unilab senior vice president for social partnership.
Duque and Galvez also visited the cold storage facility of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM), which can also store at a temperature of as low as 2 degrees Celsius.
They also visited the facilities of Zuellig Pharma, which has also committed support for the rollout of the vaccines.
Zuellig CEO Maikel Kuijpers said they have increased the combined capacity of their cold storage facilities across the country to 650 million doses at any given time.
Zuellig has cold storage facilities capable of ultra-low temperatures of -80 degrees Celsius, which is required for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines. These facilities can store up to 6.5 million doses.
The company's walk-in freezers, capable of temperatures ranging from -50 to -25 degrees Celsius, can hold 40 million doses.
Secretary Vince Dizon, deputy chief implementer of the National Task Force Against Covid-19, said in a press conference that they were in talks with 28 cold chain services providers that can also store vaccines at low temperatures.
Negotiations were also being held with five other cold chain operators, he added.
The government expects delivery of at least 92 million doses of candidate vaccines against Covid-19 this year.
As of January 19, Malacañang said Galvez has secured the supply of 30 million doses from Novavax, 25 million doses from Sinovac, 17 million doses from AstraZeneca and 20 million doses from Moderna.
The first shipment of 50,000 doses from Sinovac is expected to arrive on February 20. It will be followed by 950,000 doses in March, and two to three million doses a month until December.
An undetermined volume of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is also expected to arrive in the country in February through the Covax initiative of the World Health Organization.
Covax is a pooled procurement mechanism that will ensure fair and equitable access to vaccines. The Philippines has been listed among the 92 low- and middle-income economies which will benefit from a subsidy from the Gavi vaccine alliance.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will require storage temperature of -80 to -60 degrees Celsius.
The other vaccine brands are seen to be deployed in the third quarter of 2021.]
Galvez earlier said they are targeting to vaccinate up to 70 million Filipinos, roughly half of the Philippine population, to achieve herd immunity against Covid-19. (Marites Villamor-Ilano / SunStar Philippines)