The Philippines is set to receive 390,000 doses of bivalent COVID-19 vaccines by the end of May, the Department of Health (DOH) announced Tuesday.
In a press briefing, DOH officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said they have already applied an updated emergency use authorization before the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the donated vaccines against coronavirus.
However, Vergeire did not name which country donated the jabs.
"Tayo po ay nakapag-umpisa na at nakuha na natin yung [EUA] na kailangan mula sa Food and Drug Administration. Atin na lang pong ginagawa ay nagfa-finalize ng mga dokumento,” she said.
"Hopefully, by the end of May, we can be able to receive these 390,000 doses,” she added.
Bivalent vaccines are modified jabs that target the omicron variant and the original form of the virus.
FDA has previously granted the emergency use authorization (EUA) for the bivalent vaccines manufactured by Pfizer and Moderna last December.
The DOH has also secured 1,002,000 million doses of Pfizer's bivalent vaccines from COVAX Facility, a United Nations-backed international vaccine-sharing scheme, and were supposed to arrive in the country last March. However, the DOH is still waiting for legal clearance to receive the doses.
Based on DOH's latest data, 78.4 million Filipinos were fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as of March 20.
Meanwhile, 23.8 million have received their first booster shot and 4.4 million have their second booster.
