DOH: NCR to get over 500,000 of 2M additional AstraZeneca doses

More than 500,000 of the 2 million additional doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine will go to Metro Manila, the country’s pandemic epicenter, the Department of Health (DOH) said Monday.

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said Metro Manila, Central Luzon, and Calabarzon will get the highest number of doses from the latest AstraZeneca shipment.

“Nasa NCR Plus bubble po 'yung pinakamataas na alokasyon dahil alam naman po natin ‘yung focus natin (The highest allocations are in the NCR Plus bubble because we know that our focus) [is] so that we can be able to have herd containment here in this epicenter,” she said in an online briefing.

The distribution breakdown of the 2,030,400 additional AstraZeneca doses that arrived on Saturday is as follows: 

• NCR - 501,600 doses
• CAR - 36,000
• Region 1 - 86,400
• Region 2 - 84,000
• Region 3 - 261,000
• Region 4A - 254,000
• Region 4B - 43,200
• Region 5 - 48,000
• Region 6 - 127,200
• Region 7 - 132,000
• Region 8 - 67,200
• Region 9 - 52,800
• Region 10 - 74,400
• Region 11 - 132,000
• Region 12 - 60,000
• CARAGA - 48,000
• BARMM - 10,000
• Buffer stock - 11,600 doses

The Philippines has so far received over 7 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccines developed by AstraZeneca, Sinovac, and the Gamaleya Institute.

Another 193,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech jab are set to arrive on Monday night. 

More than 1.7 million individuals have been vaccinated as of May 4, still far off from the government’s target of inoculating 50 million to 70 million people this year. --KBK, GMA News