MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines received nearly one million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by American pharmaceutical firm Pfizer.
Some 862,290 doses arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Pasay City, while 76,050 doses were delivered to Cebu on Thursday.
The shipments were part of the 2.29 million Pfizer-BioNTech jabs procured by the national government.
In an earlier statement, the National Task Force against COVID-19 said the government is “now sending the bulk of the latest vaccine arrivals to the regions and provinces.”
So far, over 88 million vaccine doses have arrived in the Philippines.
Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. called on local governments to be more aggressive in inoculating their constituents.
“Supply is no longer an issue for our country as of this time, as we now have adequate vaccines in our national inventory,” Galvez said.
“We thus enjoin all LGUs to further scale up their vaccination throughput and encourage more of their constituents to get the jab, especially now that the vaccine rollout is now open to the general adult population,” he added.
Since March, over 23.7 million Filipinos have completed vaccination against COVID-19, while 27 million have received partial protection.
The government will start the pilot implementation of COVID-19 vaccination of minors on Friday. — Gaea Katreena Cabico