By Ernie Reyes
MANILA — Vaccine czar, Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., on Friday promised to reveal the actual price of Sinovac after the government has secured the supply agreement with the vaccine manufacturer.
In his testimony before the 3rd public hearing of the Senate Committee of the Whole, chaired by Senate President Vicente Sotto III, Galvez said that would not want to happen in the country what was incurred in Europe and Malaysia where the supply agreement was canceled because they make the price public.
Galvez also said that he will reveal other details of the negotiation for the sake of transparency after the government has secured the supply of the vaccine.
“The government does not want to jeopardize the purchase of vaccines like what happened in Malaysia and Europe when manufacturers canceled the delivery of vaccines because the prices were made public,” Galvez said.
Meanwhile, in his questioning, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said there is a need to reveal the actual price of the vaccine due to the provision in the Constitution regarding the right of the people to know the information with public concern.
“We never for the moment doubted the integrity of Sec. Galvez. I do not know Sec, Galvez personally but enjoys high respect among his peers. But we raised issues on the pricing of Sinovac principally because of the constitutional provision that the right of the people to information on matters of public concerned shall be recognized,” Drilon said.
With this, Senator Sherwin “Win” Gatchalian questioned the different efficacy rate of the vaccine specially Sinovac which make people confused about the effectiveness of the drug.
“While there is a need to raise the level of vaccine confidence, there is a lot of the question that I cannot answer myself, whenever asked by constituents, especially from news reports coming out of the internet, from international news agencies, regarding the different types of vaccines especially vaccines that were mentioned in this hearing and also in press conferences,” Gatchalian said.
“The efficacy rate of Sinovac for one, varies in different countries.,” he added.
Gatchalian said that the efficacy rate of Sinovac in Brazil is 50%; 91% in Turkey; 65% in Indonesia, and 90% in Chile.
“From a layman point of view, it seems that the efficacy (of the vaccine) is unstable…from our point of view, being ordinary citizen who doesn’t have background in this type of vaccination, seems to me that this type of a drug is quite unstable and the efficacy varies,” Gatchalian said. (AI/MTVN)
