SEN. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson is suspicious about the possible overpricing of at least P10 billion in the purchase of 89 million doses of vaccines for the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) amounting to $1 billion or P50 billion.

“That’s equivalent to P563 per dose,” Lacson said on Monday on Twitter.

For his part, Health Secretary Francisco Duque 3^rd said he has set a review of the pricing of Covid vaccines.

DOF Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez 3^rd earlier told a senate hearing that the average price per Covid-19 vaccine dose is at P568, and that excludes the logistics cost of P48 per dose.

The government still cannot disclose the exact pricing of vaccines by each supplier as it has signed nondisclosure agreements with each of them, who in turn offer different prices.

The government’s suppliers of Covid-19 vaccines include Sinovac, AstraZeneca, Pfizer-Moderna, Gemaleya Research Institute (Sputnik V), and the COVAX facility of the World Health Organization.

So far, the Philippines has a total of 20.8 million doses in its stockpile and 9.180 million are donated vaccines.