COVID-19 Task Force Deputy Chief Implementer Vince Dizon said that the government is expecting that some 117,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 will be arriving in the Philippines in April.
Dizon was referring to the initial batch of Pfizer donated by the World Health Organization. The vaccines were supposed to arrive last February but were delayed due to lack of indemnification law.
“Ang commitment ng WHO (World Health Organization), darating itong 117,000 doses ngayong Abril. Malaking bagay po ito sa ating mga health workers na priority nating matapos [na mabakunahan] hanggang sa buwan ng Abril at Mayo,” Dizon said in a laging handa briefing.
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The Philippines has so far received more than a million COVID-19 vaccines from Sinovac and AstraZeneca to kick off its vaccination program.
Dizon is confident that the 117,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will be available to health workers by April.
“Tingin ko aabot po ito kasi we only have around one million doses now and we need 3.4 million doses po ang kinakailangan natin for our health workers,” he said.
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The government expects 250,000 to 300,000 people to be vaccinated in order to meet its goal of 50 million Filipinos.
Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. is currently in India to secure 30 million doses of Novavax COVID-19 vaccine, which is an American brand but is manufactured in Serum Institute of India.
“We have a goal of inoculating 50 million Filipinos this year. We believe we can hit the target of 250,000-300,000 inoculations per day when the bulk of vaccines arrive,” Dizon said. (TDT)
