The Philippines COVID-19 Emergency Response Project (PCERP), with the Project Development Objective (PDO) to strengthen the Philippines’ capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to the threat posed by COVID-19 and strengthen national systems for public health preparedness, was approved by the World Bank on 22 April 2020.

Despite recent progress, the Philippines remains one of the countries most affected by the COVID-19 in East Asia and Pacific, rendering vaccine purchase and deployment a national priority. With the availability of vaccines, the Philippines has now an opportunity to add a significant new layer to its COVID-19 emergency response. Procuring and administering vaccines is critical to reducing mortality from COVID, opening the economy in earnest and arresting the decline in GDP, employment and incomes. Hence, Additional Financing (AF) was sought by the country to enable affordable and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines and help ensure effective vaccine deployment in the country through an enhanced vaccination system and to further strengthen preparedness and response activities.

The original approved loan financing of US$ 100 Million (Loan no. 9105-PH) had been increased by US$ 500 Million through the Additional Financing in 19 March 2021, to cover the procurement of vaccines against COVID- 19 and to support the DOH National Deployment and Vaccination Plan (NDVP) (Loan no. 9220-PH). The new total of the Project financing is US$ 600 Million.

The expected project beneficiaries will be the general population, including infected people, at-risk populations, particularly the elderly and people with chronic conditions, medical and emergency personnel, medical and testing facilities, and public health agencies engaged in the response.

The project is comprised of the following four components:

Component 1: Strengthening Emergency COVID-19 Health Care Response (US$ 577,117,000) with the following sub-component:

1.1 Provision of medical and laboratory equipment and reagents;
1.2 Provision of medical supplies, including Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), medical countermeasures, COVID-19 vaccines, medicines, and ambulances;
1.3 Regular and intensive care isolation rooms with negative pressure;
1.4 Deployment of COVID-19 vaccines (new sub-component, financed by counterpart funding from the GOP

Component 2: Strengthening laboratory capacity at national and sub-national level to support Emerging Infectious Diseases (EIDs) Prevention, Preparedness, and Response (US$ 15,678,000): It includes improving, retrofitting, and refurbishing one national reference laboratory–the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM)—as well as six sub-national and public health laboratories in Baguio, Cebu, Davao, Surigao City, and Manila;

Component 3: Implementation Management and Monitoring and Evaluation (US$ 7,205,000): This component supports project management and monitoring, including the creation of a project management team and development of project monitoring and evaluation system; and

Component 4: Contingent Emergency Response Component (CERC) (US$0), which supports immediate response to an eligible crisis or health emergency.

The Project Operations Manual (DOH Department Circular no. 2021-0142), Project’s Implementation Arrangements (DOH Department Order no. 2021-0205), Guidelines on the Project’s Civil Works Implementation (DOH Department Circular no. 2020-0398), and the PCERP Contingency Emergency Response Component – Emergency Response Operations Manual [CERC–EROM] (DOH Department Circular no. 2021-0314) are available in the resources tab.

The closing date of the Project is on December 29, 2023.