The Philippines received on Tuesday afternoon (Aug. 31) another shipment of government-procured Sinovac Biotech’s CoronaVac vaccines containing three million doses.
The National Task Force Against COVID-19 (NTF) said most of the doses will be allocated to Regions 3, 4A, 6, 7, 8, and other areas experiencing a surge of COVID-19 cases or those under Alert Level 4 category.
“Karamihan nito – pupunta ang ating delivery sa September is basically sa mga probinsya, sa mga different regions… I believe ang NCR [National Capital Region], mostly ang ibibigay dito ‘yung mga second dose na,” NTF chief implementer and vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said.
“We are very hopeful na magkaroon tayo ng Sinovac by this month na 12 million. Nag-scale up na rin ang Pfizer, and we are still negotiating with Sputnik and also with Moderna na i-scale na rin ang kanilang supply,” Galvez added.
Latest NTF data show that 33,099,392 vaccines have been administered in the country, including 19,314,711 first doses and 13,784,681 second doses.
The country is also expecting the delivery of additional Sputnik V vaccines on Tuesday night. – Report from Rod Lagusad/AG-rir