(UPDATED) Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte weighed in on the vaccine row between the European Union and British-Swedish pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca during a meeting on his government’s COVID-19 vaccine plans on Monday, February 1.

Duterte claimed the powerful regional bloc was holding AstraZeneca’s vaccines by adopting new measures to restrict the export of COVID-19 vaccines manufactured in the region.

“For all of their brouhaha, ‘o meron kami dito.’ Saan? Eh ‘yung AstraZeneca, hinostage ng European Union,” said Duterte.

(For all of their brouhaha, ‘We have vaccines here.’ Where? AstraZeneca was held hostage by the European Union.)

He mused that it seemed so easy for the EU to restrict the movement of COVID-19 vaccines and then used the controversy to explain why access to vaccines in general is complicated and difficult to secure, especially for countries not as powerful.

“Ganoon kadali (It’s that easy). We are not really as powerful as the EU, eh wala tayong connection, wala tayong pera (We don’t have as many connections, we don’t have money.),” said Duterte.

During the same meeting, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III emphasized the Philippines has funds and that access would be more affected by delays in manufacturing.

Will the new EU measures affect vaccine supply to the Philippines?

AstraZeneca is set to provide the Philippines with at least 17 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine, through agreements the company signed with private corporations and local governments.

But AstraZeneca vaccines will also be coming in through the World Health Organization (WHO) and the GAVI COVAX Facility, a mechanism designed to provide equitable vaccine access to developing countries.

The Philippines was able to get commitment from WHO that it would get an initial batch of AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines in mid-February. These two vaccines have been granted emergency use approval by the Philippines’ Food and Drug Administration.

The EU restrictions on COVID-19 vaccine exports do not cover countries participating in the COVAX Facility.

Outside of the supply coming from COVAX, the new EU measures will not affect the Philippines’ orders of AstraZeneca vaccines, said vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr on Tuesday, February 2.

This is because the Philippine orders will be manufactured outside of the EU.

“There will be no complication because it will be coming from a factory in Thailand,” he said in Filipino.

Another possible source of AstraZeneca vaccines for Philippine orders is India, home to the Serum Institute which Galvez said is making 2 billion doses for the British-Swedish pharmaceutical.

The AstraZeneca orders made by local government units and private sector are expected to arrive in the months of July to September. – Rappler.com