The Philippines has received an additional half a million doses of Chinese-made Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines on Thursday.
Doses of the vaccine were delivered via a Cebu Pacific flight (5J671) at Terminal 2 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).
The new batch of Sinovac vaccines brings the total number of Chinese vaccines to 5.5 million doses which also includes the 1 million doses donated by the Chinese government.
1.5 million doses of SInovac vaccines arrived earlier this month in Manila. Vaccine czar Sec. Carlito Galvez Jr. previously said the Philippines may also receive 4.5 million doses of CoronaVac in June.
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The Philippine government has administered 3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines in May.
A total of 3,001,875 doses have been administered in the country as of May 16.
2,282,273 were administered as the first dose while 719,602 were given as the second dose.
Galvez added that the country has so far been able to conduct 120,000 doses per day compared to the previous 30,000 a day.
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Galvez is confident that the number of vaccinations will still increase upon the arrival of more vaccines.
“May iba na resistant kaya kailangan na talagang mapangaralan ‘yung mga A2, mga seniors at mga may comorbidities na talagang magpabakuna sila,” Galvez said.
DOH data showed that 1,635,193 COVID-19 vaccine doses were given to health workers, 689,609 to senior citizens, 667,687 to persons with comorbidities, while 9,147 were given to essential frontliners. (TDT)
