Sinovac vaccines arrive in Cebu, Davao; rollout on Thursday, Friday

Thousands of doses of Sinovac’s COVID-19 vaccine arrived in the cities of Cebu and Davao on Tuesday.

According to a report on “Balitanghali”, 7,200 doses went to the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu. Twelve thousand were brought to Davao City.

Cebu is expected to begin its vaccination rollout on Thursday; Davao on Friday.

The Philippines started its COVID-19 vaccination program on Mondayafter receiving 600,000 doses of CoronaVac from China.

Despite initial misgivings about Sinovac, vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez. Jr. said more people have expressed intention to be vaccinated after seeing doctors in Metro Manila got the jabs.

University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital director Dr. Gerardo Legaspi on Monday became the country’s first official recipient of a vaccine against COVID-19.

So far, only the vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Sinovac have been approved for emergency use by the FDA. 

The government aims to secure 148 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to vaccinate up to 70 million Filipinos this year. -Ma. Angelica Garcia/NB, GMA News