By Pearl Gumapos
Some 132,200 doses of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine arrived in the Philippines last Friday night at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 via Qatar Airways flight QR 928.
Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. and Russian Ambassador to the Philippines Marat Pavlov were present during the arrival.
The vaccines were immediately transported to a cold-chain storage facility in Marikina City.
This shipment is a part of the 170,00 doses of Sputnik V that will be arriving later this week.
The remaining 37,800 will arrive tonight.
The latest shipment of Sputnik V vaccines brings up the country’s total doses of said vaccine to 312,000.
Galvez said 40% to 50% of the recently delivered Sputnik V vaccines will be going to areas under the National Capital Region (NCR) Plus 8, and the rest of the vaccines will be distributed to cities with ready cold-chain facilities, particularly in Regions 1 (Ilocos), 2 (Cagayan Valley), 3 (Central Luzon), and 4-A (Calabarzon).
“Some LGUs [who] have already prepared will be given these (jabs). And also some of them will go to the Visayas and Mindanao,” Galvez said.
Meanwhile, Galvez said there would be no restriction in the use of government-procured jabs.
“It will be given to priority sector(s) under categories A1 to A5,” he said.
Galvez also said the Philippines has a total of 20,739,770 doses in the stockpile, including the latest delivery.
More than 4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines are set to arrive next week – 2.5 million doses of Sinovac, 1.7 million doses of AstraZeneca, and more or less 500,000 doses of Pfizer, Galvez said. -rir
