Philippines receives 1M more doses of Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine

A million more doses of Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine arrived in the Philippines on Friday, according to an Unang Balita report.

The latest batch was part of the 26 million Sinovac doses purchased by the Philippine government.

A separate report by Luisito Santos on Dobol B TV said the additional supply of COVID-19 vaccine arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 at 7:38 a.m. via Cebu Pacific Flight 5J 723.

Representatives from the National Task Force Against COVID-19 (NTF) personally welcomed the arrival of the new supply of vaccine.

The latest shipment was on top of the 1.5 million government-purchased Sinovac doses that arrived on Thursday.

Based on Philippine Food and Drug Administration (FDA) evaluation of Sinovac's vaccine, it has the following efficacy rates:

• 65% to 91% among healthy individuals aged 18 to 59,
• 50.4% for health workers, and
• 51% to 52% on senior citizens or those aged 60 and above
• Sinovac's vaccine is given in two doses

The Philippines officially rolled out its vaccination program on March 1 but it has been hampered by supply problems.

Around 415,000 doses of Astrazeneca vaccine donated by the UK government will also be delivered this week, NTF chief implementer and vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. earlier said.

With the latest arrival, the country has now received over 32 million COVID-19 vaccine doses from Astrazeneca, Pfizer, Sinovac, Gamaleya, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson.

Over 27 million doses have already been deployed to different parts of the country.

As of July 27, a total of 18,174,405 vaccine doses have been administered.  —Joviland Rita/KBK, GMA News