Philippines gets first procured doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines on Wednesday received 562,770 new doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, marking the delivery of the first batch of its procured supply from the manufacturer.
News5 reported that a plane carrying the vaccine landed at the NAIA Terminal 3 in Pasay on the evening of July 21.
Cebu and Davao, two areas aside from Metro Manila with capability to store the jabs, would get 51,480 doses each from the delivery.
Government secured the supply agreement for this with the US drugmaker last month. In total, the deal would provide 40 million Pfizer doses to the Philippines.
Before this shipment, the country was getting its supply of Pfizer from the COVAX Facility, or 2.2 million doses in June and over 193,000 in May.
The arrival of additional vaccines come as the country braces for the threat of the highly infectious Delta variant, and as authorities double time to ramp up inoculations.
Latest figures showed there were now 7.19% or 5.03 million of the target population complete with their COVID-19 shots.
Some 15.12% or 10.58 million have since received their first dose. Officials are looking to vaccinate up to 70 million this year.
Apart from Pfizer, Palace said some 2.5 million more doses of Sinovac would also reach the country this week. — Christian Deiparine, with reports from News5/Camille Samonte
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