UNICEF Philippines has clarified that the Philippines received on June 10, 2021 the complete 2,279,160 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) committed under the Covax Facility.
This brought the total volume delivered to the Philippines as of June 27 to 17,457,810 doses, consisting of 12 million doses of the Sinovac inactivated vaccine, 2.556 million doses of the AstraZeneca adenoviral vector vaccine, 2,472,210 doses of Pfizer, 249,600 doses of Moderna mRNA vaccine and 180,000 doses of Sputnik V adenoviral vector vaccine.
Margaretha Francia, communication officer of Unicef Philippines, said the Department of Health (DOH) has confirmed receiving the correct number of doses.
“It was found out that during the packing of allocated vaccines last June 12, 2021 that the tertiary packaging labeled with two trays has an actual quantity of four trays,” Francia said in a email on Wednesday, June 30.
“They have received the accurate quantity of Pfizer vaccines from Covax as declared in the shipping document in June: 2,279,160. So there are no lacking doses,” she added.
The National Task Force (NTF) Against Covid-19 earlier said the Philippines received only 2,276,820 doses, or 2,340 doses short of the 2,279,160 doses that were transported by Unicef Philippines.
Read: Discrepancy in Pfizer vaccine deliveries noted
Together with the 193,050 doses that were delivered on May 10, the Philippines has received a total of 2,472,210 doses of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine.
The AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines were donated through Covax.
The website of the Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, which coordinates the operation and fund-raising activities for Covax, states that a total of 7,056,210 doses have been allocated for the Philippines, consisting of 4.584 million doses of AstraZeneca and 2,472,210 doses of Pfizer.
The Philippines is among 92 low and middle-income economies that are eligible to receive vaccine donations or subsidized allocations through the Covax advance market commitment mechanism.
Covax, which aims to ensure global equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines, is co-led by Gavi, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and World Health Organization with Unicef as delivery partner.
It has shipped over 89 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines to 133 participants.
Of the other vaccines delivered to the Philippines, one million doses of the Sinovac vaccine were donated by China while 99,600 doses of the Moderna vaccine were purchased by the private sector.
The rest were procured by the Philippine government.
As of June 27, public and private sector vaccination sites nationwide have administered more than 10 million doses to over 7.5 million individuals, more than 2.5 million of whom have also received their second dose. (Marites Villamor-Ilano / SunStar Philippines)