MANILA, Philippines — China's Sinopharm vaccine has been cleared for emergency use in the Philippines, the Food and Drug Administration said Monday night.
FDA chief Eric Domingo told the weekly meeting of the pandemic task force that they issued the EUA to the Department of Health today.
Executive Order 121 allows the concerned government agency to file an EUA to local regulators. The Department of Health said last month it would do so after Sinopharm was approved by the World Health Organization.
"Secretary Francisco Duque III wrote to FDA on May 20 that they were willing to accept donations for Sinopharm coming from China," Domingo said in Filipino.
The development brings the number of vaccine manufacturers with EUA in the country to eight, along with Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Sinovac, Gamaleya, Johnson & Johnson, Bharat Biotech, and Moderna.
"This has been granted EUL already by the WHO," Domingo continued. "So this was also checked by our experts and in our evaluation at the FDA."
Duque had said that his agency will seek the EUA so that the Philippines would no longer have to return the donated Sinopharm jabs to Beijing.
The said vaccine has long figured in controversies at home. No one has been held accountable to date over the illegal inoculation of the Presidential Security Group with it last year, while President Rodrigo Duterte receiving Sinopharm without EUA was met too with criticism.
Sinopharm was the first Chinese vaccine to receive green light from the WHO. The United Nations' health agency has recommended the two-dose jab for adults 18 years and older.