Philippines receives over 1 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine

The Philippines received an additional 1,078,740 doses of government-procured Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday night.

The fresh batch of vaccine doses landed at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 past 8 p.m.

Dr. Ted Herbosa, National Task Force Against (NTF) COVID-19 medical adviser, said the task force is looking into the distribution of Pfizer vaccines to highly-populated areas in the country.

Herbosa said that four million syringes for Pfizer vaccine will also be arriving on December 2.

“The arrival of the syringes, I was talking to our UNICEF colleagues this afternoon as the COVAX vaccines arrived, they are saying the four million syringes for Pfizer are arriving tomorrow, December 2,” he said.

“We are waiting for that eagerly because that lowered our target, the lack of the syringes. If that arrives we could vaccine more,” he added.

The government has adjusted its target vaccination output for the three-day vaccination drive from 15 million to nine million due to shortage in ancillary supplies, particularly syringes.

The Philippines has inoculated at least five million individuals during the first two days of the nationwide vaccination drive, according to the government data.

Vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. earlier said the task force will recommend to President Rodrigo Duterte to extend the national vaccination drive until Friday.

The country also received 1,632,900 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine donated by the French government on Wednesday afternoon.

The Philippines started its vaccination program on March 1.—LDF, GMA News