Central Visayas to get more Sinovac, Pfizer doses

CEBU, Philippines —  A total of five million more doses of vaccines arrived in the country on Sunday night, and some of these will be allocated for Central Visayas.

First to arrive in Manila on Sunday were another 3 million doses of CoronaVac (Sinovac) vaccines.

Sinovac has so far delivered 36 million CoronaVac doses to the country, 34,100,000 doses of which were procured by the national government.

A few hours later, a total of 2,020,590 doses of Pfizer- BioNTech vaccines were also delivered through the WHO-led COVAX facility.

Aside from that, an additional 561,600 doses of Pfizer vaccines donated by the US government through COVAX was also expected to arrive last night.

The United States government has been supportive of the Philippines’ coronavirus pandemic response and mitigation efforts through the various medical supplies and equipment it has provided under USAID.

“We’re also very happy that the United States has been able to contribute P1.9 billion to the Philippines for treatment, for testing, for equipment like ICU beds and other things that we can work with the Philippines to fight COVID,” US Embassy Chargé d'Affaires Heather Variava said during an interview.

WHO representative Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinghe, for his part, gave assurance that the COVAX facility will continue to send Pfizer vaccines to the country in the coming days.

“Over the next week or two, we will bring up to 10 million doses of Pfizer vaccines. That is meant to help the Philippines respond to the current surge and protect as many Filipino lives as possible,” Abeyasinghe said.

National Task Force against COVID-19 chief implementer Secretary Carlito G. Galvez Jr. conveyed President Rodrigo Duerte’s gratitude to the US government and the COVAX facility.

“The President is very grateful and very thankful to GAVI and COVAX particularly to the US for providing us the much-needed vaccines. The donations that you have given to us, initially the Moderna and the J&J, have been very useful,” Galvez said.

The country has received a total of 64,380,400 COVID-19 vaccine doses from various manufacturers since February. — JMD (FREEMAN)