(File photo) In this file photo taken on December 30, 2020 a nurse prepares a dose of the Sputnik V (Gam-COVID-Vac) (Photo by Natalia KOLESNIKOVA / AFP)
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Central Visayas has facilities fit to store Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccines, the regional health office has reported.
Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, spokesperson of the Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH-7), said there are cold storage establishments in the region with the capacity to store Sputnik V.
Loreche said Sputnik V, manufactured by Russia-based Gamalea Research Institute, would require cold storage facilities with temperatures reaching up to -18 degrees centigrade.
However, since these vaccines have to be kept in rooms or storages with ultra-low temperatures, Loreche said transporting them might only be limited within highly urbanized cities in Central Visayas.
“Most likely mo benefit ani kay highly urbanized cities kay paglogistics in terms of transport ug pag-release in time for the vaccination itself, dili kaayo layo, dili dugay ang pagbiyahe niya. So we would be able to maintain the storage requirement in terms of temperature,” explained Loreche.
(Most likely those that will benefit for these vaccines are highly urbanized cities because in terms of logistics and transport, distance and time of traveling should be short. So we would be able to maintain the storage requirement in terms of temperature.)
Last week, National Task Force against COVID-19 and vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. announced they were expecting the shipment of 480,000 doses of Sputnik V to arrive in the country this April 29.
State-run media People’s Television (PTV) reported on Sunday, April 25 that only a few local governments or areas might be allocated with Sputnik V since the others did not have the required cold storage facilities to store these vaccines.
In the meantime, Loreche said they were waiting for information from the team of experts the government here had deployed in identifying specific cold storage facilities appropriate for Sputnik V.
“Right now, our in charge of the cold-chain must be looking into this matter already but definitely, everything will be stored here in the cold chain storage of DOH-7 to centralize distribution as well as to maintain the temperature requirement of these vaccines,” she explained.
On the other hand, the DOH-7 official said they were still waiting for further information from national government officials on the next batch of COVID-19 vaccines that would arrive in Central Visayas.
These included the possibility that the region might be allocated with doses of the Russian-made COVID-19 vaccines.
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/dbs