THE Philippines on Saturday, July 17, 2021, received the second batch of 1,606,600 doses of the single-shot Covid-19 vaccine developed by Janssen (J&J), completing the 3,213,200 doses donation from the United States (US) through Covax Facility.
The first batch of the American-made vaccines consisting of 1,606,600 doses arrived on Friday, July 16.
Clinical trial results for the single-dose Janssen vaccine showed an efficacy rate of up to 66.9 percent against moderate to severe coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
As of July 17, the Philippines has received a total of 26,394,710 doses of vaccines, consisting of 13 million doses of Sinovac, 6,858,900 doses of AstraZeneca, 2,472,210 doses of Pfizer, 500,400 doses of Moderna, 350,000 doses of Sputnik V and 3,213,200 doses of Janssen.
These included the following donations: one million doses of Sinovac from China, 4.584 million doses of AstraZeneca from Covax, 2,472,210 doses of Pfizer from Covax, 1,124,100 doses of AstraZeneca from Japan and 3,213,200 doses of Janssen from US through Covax.
All these vaccines have been granted emergency use authorization in the Philippines.
The Sinovac vaccine was developed using inactivated virus while Pfizer and Moderna are both mRNA vaccines.
AstraZeneca, Sputnik V and Janssen are viral vector vaccines.
Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. earlier said priority will be given to the regions with local cases of the Delta variant of Sars-CoV-2 in the distribution of the single-dose vaccine.
The first local cases of Delta (B.1.617.2) were detected in Northern Mindanao, particularly Cagayan de Oro City, Western Visayas and National Capital Region. (Marites Villamor-Ilano / SunStar Philippines)