MANILA, Philippines — China's ambassador to the Philippines on Thursday announced Beijing would donate a million doses of Sinopharm's COVID-19 vaccine to the country.
Ambassador Huang Xilian said the additional supply of the Chinese-made jabs would arrive either on Friday or Saturday.
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He added the move is part of China's pledge to "substantively increase" its supply of vaccines to the Philippines, which is battling an uptick in coronavirus cases.
"[This] cooperation addresses the need to increase and fast-track vaccine supply and shipment," he wrote on Facebook.
Sinopharm has figured in controversies in the Philippines as early as December 2020.
It was the vaccine secretly administered to the Presidential Security Group and that Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana admitted were smuggled. No one has been held accountable for that so far.
In May, President Rodrigo Duterte also offered to return to China its donation of 1,000 doses. It came after backlash from him receiving the jab, despite no emergency use authorization at home yet.
Manila on August 11 got 100,000 doses of Sinopharm as a donation from the United Arab Emirates.
Food and Drug Administration chief Eric Domingo at the time said they approved the health department's application for emergency use but only for the batch from the UAE.
"To date, Chinese vaccines compose more than 50% of the Philippines' supply," Xilian added, "a majority from Sinovac's Coronavac doses totaling 25.5 million."
Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said the Philippines is expecting some six million vaccine doses in total this week.
Latest government figures showed there are now 12.87 million Filipinos fully vaccinated for COVID-19, against the target of 70 million this year.
Some 16.25 million, meanwhile, have received their first dose.