Philippines gets over 1M doses of AstraZeneca vax from Japan

The Philippines received Saturday a total of 1,065,600 doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine donated by Japan.

According to authorities the new batch of COVID-19 vaccine doses arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 1 at past noon.

Present during the vaccine arrival were National Task Force Against COVID-19 special adviser Dr. Teodoro Herbosa, Japan Embassy Economic minister Masahiro Nakata, as well as officials from the foreign and health departments.

Herbosa said the arrival of the fresh batch of COVID-19 vaccines will be distributed to the different regions of the country.

“The vaccination program really worked, those who were still hesitant magparehistro na kayo sa local government units (LGUs) niyo at hindi issue ang kulang sa bakuna. Marami na pong bakuna [for] all 18 years old and up pwede nang bakunahan,” the NTF COVID-19 special adviser said.

(The vaccination program really worked, those who are still hesitant must now register with your LGUs as the lack of vaccines is no longer an issue. We have enough vaccines for all 18-years-old and up.)

Around 896,000 more doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine donated by the Japanese government also arrived in the Philippines on Thursday afternoon.

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. —LBG, GMA News