MANILA, Philippines – Around 190,000 doses of Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine (component 2) manufactured by Russian firm Gamaleya Research Institute are expected to arrive in the country this month, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said Friday.

Galvez said the additional vaccine supply may be delivered by the weekend or early next week.

“This shipment of Sputnik V vaccines shall be used for the second dose. After this, we will be receiving the single-shot Sputnik V Light as we move forward with our vaccine rollout,” he said.

Galvez, who is also the chief implementer of the National Task Force (NTF) against COVID-19, eased concerns among those who have already received their first dose of Sputnik V.

“As per our vaccine experts from the Department of Health, the gap between first and second doses of Sputnik V can be as long as six months, so no need to worry because the vaccines are arriving soon,” Galvez explained.

This month, the country expects to receive the first batch of government-procured Sputnik V Light vaccines consisting of 1 million doses.

“The Sputnik V Light is more efficient because we will be able to protect more people faster. This would eliminate the problem wherein people fail to return for their second dose,” Galvez noted.

As of September 15, the country has received a total of 57,547,610 vaccine doses from various manufacturers, of which over 36 million doses were procured by the national government.

The country has also breached the 40 million mark in terms of COVID-19 jabs administered, with 40,030,388 shots given as of September 15. Of this number, 17,675,959 were fully vaccinated and 22,354,429 received their first dose.

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines on Wednesday night received a total of 753,480 additional doses of COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by the US-based firm Pfizer, the National Task Force (NTF) against COVID-19 said.

A part of the shipment, around 51,480 doses were first unloaded in Cebu while the rest arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport around 9 p.m.

The newly delivered vaccine shots will be transported to a storage facility in Marikina City.

The NTF said 51,480 of these doses will be distributed to Davao City on Thursday.

The Philippines has so far received around 56.7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from various manufacturers since February.

The World Health Organization (WHO) continues its call to address vaccine inequity in hopes to end the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in his speech on Tuesday evening (September 14), lamented that of the more than 5.7 billion doses that have been administered globally, only less than 2% have been administered in Africa.

He said that Africa has been left behind when it comes to vaccine rollout.

“There are countries with less than two percent vaccination coverage, most of them in Africa, who are not even getting their first and second dose,” Tedros said.

Dr. Tedros said the lack of vaccines in Africa has a global impact that should be addressed.

“The longer vaccine inequity persists, the more the virus will keep circulating and changing, the longer the social and economic disruption will continue, and the higher the chances that more variants will emerge that render vaccines less effective,” he said.

The WHO calls on vaccine manufacturers to prioritize COVAX and the African COVID-19 Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVAT). It also calls on countries that have already achieved high coverage levels to swap their near-term vaccine deliveries with COVAX and AVAT.

The organization’s global targets are to support every country to vaccinate at least 40% of its population by the end of this year, and 70% of the world’s population by the middle of next year. AAC