National Task Force against COVID-19 chief implementer and Vaccine Czar Carlito Galvez on Tuesday said the government signed an agreement with Serum Institute of India to supply 30 million doses of Novavax.

“The outcome of our trip in India is good because we secured 30 million doses of Novavax,” Galvez said during a press briefing.

“We signed a supply agreement (with the Indian government) where the Serum Institute of India will supply 30 million vaccines to the country,” he said.

Galvez said the doses are expected to arrive by the third or fourth quarter.

“We are just waiting for the approval of emergency use of authorization from the UK, US and here in the Philippines,” he said.

Once negotiations succeed, Galvez said they will expand their order to 100-120 million doses.

Galvez said the vaccine panel of experts are interested in the programs of India on how to eliminate COVID-19.

“They are interested in having explanatory talks and clinical trials here in the Philippines,” he said.

He said the government is eyeing to contain the virus in 2021 and to fully eliminate the virus in 2022.

"We are looking (at) second, third generation vaccine that could be a one time, big time booster to prevent contamination... We will work with different manufacturing companies on how to eliminate the disease by 2022.

Galvez said as of 11am Tuesday, a total of 216, 794 medical frontliners were vaccinated.

Last night, he said around 2.3 million doses of vaccine are expected to arrive this month. Ella Dionisio/DMS