Philippine vaccination average at 162,513 daily —NTF

The Philippines administers an average of 162,513 COVID-19 jabs daily,  the government's task force on pandemic response said Sunday.

Also, the National Task Force (NTF) against COVID-19 said that as of May 22, the country has administered a total of 4,097,425 COVID-19 vaccine doses nationwide.

But the figure is still far off from the target of 50 to 70 million vaccinated individuals this year to achieve herd immunity.

Of the total number, 3,147,486 were first doses while 969,939 were second doses of the vaccines against COVID-19.

"Based on the Bloomberg report, in terms of total number of anti-COVID vaccines administered, the Philippines ranks second out of 10 ASEAN Member States; 13th out 47 countries in Asia; and 37th out of 196 countries worldwide," NTF also said in its statement.

On Saturday, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said the Philippines recorded its highest daily vaccination rate on May 20, with 229,769 administered doses.

Galvez lauded the achievement of 4 million administered doses, adding that it is a product of unity between national government, local government units, private sector and Filipinos.

"We need to maintain this momentum and remain focused on building up our vaccine supply, ramping up our vaccination rate, and encouraging more of our countrymen to get the jab," Galvez said in a statement.

Galvez said the four million mark will bring the country "closer" to achieving a target of daily vaccination rate of at least half a million and achieve herd immunity before 2021 ends.

"I am confident that as we start inoculating our economic frontliners and indigenous population by June, we will be able to double this figure and vaccinate more than four million people as long there is a steady supply of vaccines," he said.

Last week, another 500,000 doses of Sinovac vaccines arrived, increasing the Philippines' total vaccine supply inventory to 8,279,050 since the first vaccine delivery was made in February this year.

Galvez said  2.2 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech and 300,000 doses of Sputnik V will be delivered by June.

Moderna will also make its delivery of 200,000 doses procured by the government and another 50,000 doses bought by the private sector, Galvez added.

British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca will also deliver 1.3 million doses procured by the private sector next month. —LBG, GMA News