896K AstraZeneca doses donated by Japan arrive in Philippines
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines received Thursday 896,000 doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine donated by the Japanese government.
The Japanese-manufactured shots landed at 12:30 p.m. onboard an All Nippon Airways flight at Terminal 1 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
The 896,000 doses that have been delivered make up the first batch of a total of 1.96 million vaccine doses that the Japanese government is donating to the Philippines.
Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez told reporters at a press conference that part of the freshly-delivered vaccines will be used as booster doses, while others will be used as second doses.
“The arrival of this latest vaccine donation from Japan comes at a crucial stage in time as the Philippines continues to expand the coverage of its vaccine rollout,” Galvez said. “These donated vaccines will enable the Philippines to realize its goal of achieving a daily jab rate of 1.5 million doses and fully vaccinating 50 million Filipinos by year-end.”
With the new shipment, the total number of AstraZeneca shots that have arrived in the Philippines is now at around 12.7 million, according to Philstar.com’s independent monitoring.
All in all, 99.5 million doses of various coronavirus vaccines have arrived in the Philippines since the first shots arrived in February. — Xave Gregorio
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