Philippines gets 500,000 more doses of Sinovac vaccine
MANILA, Philippines — Another half a million doses of the coronavirus vaccine developed by Sinovac Biotech arrived in the Philippines Thursday morning.
The Cebu Pacific flight carrying 500,000 CoronaVac doses landed at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport at 7:37 a.m.
The delivery raised the number of jabs the government has received from the Chinese drugmaker to 5.5 million, a million of which were donated by Beijing.
Ambassador Chito Sta. Romana said the latest shipment was the “last tranche” of COVID-19 vaccines coming from China in May.
“More vaccines from Sinovac are expected in June and the following months,” he said Wednesday.
CoronaVac is one of the four vaccines being used in the government’s inoculation drive, along with the jabs developed by AstraZeneca, Gamaleya Research Institute and Pfizer-BioNTech.
Figures from the Department of Health showed that 786,528 Filipinos have been fully vaccinated as of May 18, while 2.5 million have received their first dose.
The government is gearing up to vaccinate economic frontliners and indigent Filipinos in Metro Manila, Bulacan, Cavite, Rizal, Laguna, Pampanga, Metro Cebu and Metro Davao, with the goal of achieving herd immunity in these areas by November.
The country's overall COVID-19 caseload reached over 1.15 million, including 19,507 deaths. — with a report from News5/Justinne Punsalang
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