Philippines receives 896,000 AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine doses from Japan

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

The new supply of vaccines arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 1 via Flight NH859 at around 12:30 p.m.

Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. thanked the Japanese government for its donation of over three million COVID-19 vaccine doses to the Philippines.

“The latest arrival of this vaccine donation from Japan comes at a crucial stage as the Philippines continues to expand the coverage of vaccination rollout,” he said at a press conference.

Galvez said the Philippines is expected to achieve the milestone of receiving a total of 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses within the day.

“We are happy that Japan and other countries who donated vaccines for us, they will be part of our very important milestone,” he said.

“We never knew we will achieve this milestone on this day here. We will be receiving 100 million vaccines that have been procured and donated by our ally countries,” he added.

Japanese Ambassador Koshikawa Kazuhiko expressed hope that with the vaccine provisions from Japan, the Philippines would be able to steadily recover from the impact of the pandemic and have a better Christmas this year.

In July, the Japanese government also donated 1.12 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to the Philippines. Another batch of vaccine doses will be delivered on Saturday. 

The vaccine provisions from Japan form part of its bilateral cooperation with the Philippines, in addition to its active contribution to the COVAX facility.

A total of 99,551,290 vaccine doses have been delivered by several manufacturers to the Philippines as of Thursday noon, according to the National Task Force Against COVID-19. — RSJ/VBL, GMA News