Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte on Wednesday allayed fears that the European Union’s ban on the exportation of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines could trigger a problem for vaccine supply in Metro Manila.
She clarified that the city government has not released any money when it signed an agreement with British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca.
President Rodrigo Duterte earlier said the European Union was holding hostage the supply of COVID-19 vaccines to other countries, and that less-wealthy countries lacked the power to buy all that they sought.
“As I have mentioned, all we did was sign the tripartite agreement. No money has been released from our coffers and there are many, many vaccine suppliers that, I think, now are willing to engage in talks with local government. So that would not be a big loss I think so. Although time would probably be lost,” Belmonte said.
“But then again, if AstraZeneca has a problem, that that wouldn’t be an issue because wala naman silang supply… We don’t see this as a problem for us at the moment,” she added.
She said AstraZeneca has not raised to them any adverse effects of the EU’s prohibition on their tripartite deals.