Philippines receives nearly 1M doses of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine

The Philippines received a total of 973,440 government-procured Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine doses on Friday night.

The shipment arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 past 9 p.m.

Assistant Secretary Wilben Mayor, head of the National Task Force Against COVID-19's sub-task group on current operations, expressed gratitude to the United States government for helping in the procurement of the COVID-19 vaccines.

He said the fresh batch of Pfizer vaccine doses would be used for the inoculation of adolescents ages 12 to 17 starting November 3.

“Lahat ng regions ay bibigyan na ng lahat ng mga bakunang dumadating considering that prepared na rin ang ating mga regions,” Mayor said.

(All regions will be given all brands of vaccines considering that our regions are already prepared.)

In a statement on Friday, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said the Philippines expects to receive around 50 to 60 million COVID-19 vaccine doses in the remaining two months of the year.

The Philippines started its vaccination program against COVID-19 on March 1.

Galvez earlier said the government aims to increase daily vaccinations to 1.5 million. — VBL, GMA News