Philippines gets 502,000 new AstraZeneca doses

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines on Friday received 502,000 new doses of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine as procured by local governments and the private sector. 

A China Airlines plane carrying the jabs landed at the NAIA Terminal 1 in  Parañaque on the morning of September 10. 

Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said most of the additional supply or 80% would go to local governments. 

In total, the country has received 8.93 million AstraZeneca doses according to Philstar.com's monitoring. 

Most of the said supply came from the global initiative COVAX Facility at 4.58 million. 

Sinovac makes up more than a majority of the country's vaccines at 29.5 million doses. 

Galvez added the national government, the private sector and LGUs have "initially" agreed to procure 20 million COVID-19 jabs in 2022. 

Latest figures showed there are now 16.13 million Filipinos fully vaccinated for COVID-19. 

That is out of the government's target of inoculating up to 70 million this year to meet "population protection."

Some 21.58 million, meanwhile, have received an initial dose. 

The vaccination figures come as the country continues to report record-high coronavirus infections that authorities, to date, have refused to call a "surge."