THE Philippine government received Monday evening, September 20, an additional 561,600 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccines from the United States.
On Sunday, September 19, 2,020,590 doses of Pfizer vaccine also arrived in the country. The vaccines were donated by the US through the World Health Organization (WHO)-led Covax facility.
“I’m really proud that we donated for the last two days more than two million doses that will give more than a million Filipinos full vaccination,” US Embassy Chargé d'Affaires Heather Variava said.
Variava also expressed gratitude to the Philippine government, WHO, and Unicef for the continuing partnership, which is “helping to save lives and overcome the pandemic.”
As of September 21, the Philippines has already received about 16 million Covid-19 vaccine doses from Covax.
National Task Force (NTF) Against Covid-19 special adviser Dr. Teodoro Herbosa said majority of these doses will be deployed to Calabarzon, Central Luzon, Cebu and Davao.
“We continue to catch up in those areas where we only have about three percent to five percent fully vaccinated [individuals]. So hinahabol talaga natin ‘yung outside NCR,” Herbosa said.
The latest batch of Pfizer vaccines was immediately transported to the Pharmaserve cold storage facility in Marikina City.
Aside from the donated jabs, 3,935,880 procured Pfizer doses have been delivered to the Philippines as part of the 40 million doses the country has secured from the American pharmaceutical firm.
NTF medical consultant Dr. Ma. Paz Corrales, Health Undersecretary Carolina Vidal-Taiño, Dr. Malalay Ahmadzai, Unicef Philippines’ chief of Health and Nutrition, and Health Director Michelle Lang-Alli, USAid Philippines, also witnessed the arrival of the vaccines.
The NTF said that as of September 20, a total of 64,942,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses coming from various manufacturers have been delivered to the country. (PR)