THE Philippines received on Wednesday evening, August 18, 2021, 365,040 doses of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine against coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) procured by the national government.
The National Task Force (NTF) Against Covid-19 said the Hong Kong Airlines plane that carried the latest vaccine shipment stopped over in Cebu and unloaded 51,480 doses.
Another 51,480 doses will also be flown to Davao Thursday, August 19.
“‘Yung karamihan dito ‘yung bibigyan natin are those areas na hindi pa nabibigyan ng Pfizer,” Galvez said in a press conference.
“So that in the future, once Pfizer picks up their deliveries, they are well aware and they are already well trained on how to handle the sensitivities of Pfizer,” he added.
A total of 2,116,530 doses have so far been delivered out of the 40 million doses of Pfizer vaccine purchased by the government.
This latest shipment brought the total deliveries to the Philippines to 42,940,390 doses.
Galvez said five million more doses of the Pfizer vaccine are expected to arrive in September.
As of August 15, a total of 12,565,017 people have been fully vaccinated nationwide while 15,241,864 have gotten their first dose.
The government aims to inoculate 77,746,906 Filipinos, or 70 percent of its total population in order to achieve herd immunity by the end of the year. (Third Anne Peralta-Malonzo / SunStar Philippines)