Over 29k individuals vaccinated so far against COVID-19 — Palace

More than 29,000 Filipinos have been vaccinated against COVID-19 since the Philippines began its inoculation program on March 1, Malacañang said Monday.

Citing Department of Health data, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said 29,266 individuals received the first dose of the vaccine as of March 7.

The government has also deployed 383,980 doses of the vaccines developed by Chinese firm Sinovac and British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to various hospitals and medical facilities across the country.

The Food and Drug Administration has so far approved an emergency use authorization for three vaccines: Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneza and Sinovac. The three vaccines should be administered in two doses.

The Philippines now has 1.1 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines — 600,000 doses of Sinovac vaccine donated by China and 525,600 doses of AstraZeneca from the COVAX facility.

Millions of doses from several vaccine suppliers are expected to arrive in the country in the coming months, government officials said.

The Philippines aims to vaccinate up to 70 million Filipinos this year. — Virgil Lopez/RSJ, GMA News