The second-generation Covid-19 vaccines or bivalent vaccines that are made to protect individuals against the Omicron variant would be available in the country by the end of December, the Department of Health said.

In a media briefing, Health Officer-in-Charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said the government is still in the middle of negotiations with vaccine manufacturers Moderna and Pfizer to make these bivalent vaccines available in the country.

"Until now, I think the negotiation to procure bivalent vaccines is continuous. We already have several meetings with Moderna manufacturer where we have already submitted our term sheets," Vergeire said.

She disclosed that the Health department is also preparing for a meeting with the Pfizer manufacturer, as well as the confidentiality disclosure agreement.

"Now with these two, we are estimating that the earliest we will hopefully have these will be by the end of December or the first quarter of 2023 because we still need to go through the different clearances for regulation of these vaccines," the Health official said.

So far, Moderna has filed its complete dossier or vaccine documents with the Food and Drug Administration, according to Vergeire.

Meanwhile, the Health department recorded a total of 1,229 fresh cases on Saturday, the first time cases increase over 1,000 mark in four days.

Based on the latest Covid bulletin, the new cases pushed the country's total caseload to 4,008,550.

The number of active cases dropped to 17,123, while the total number of recovered patients climbed to 3,927,187

The DoH reported 29 deaths related to Covid-19 complications, pushing the country's death toll to 64,240.