With arrival of 38,400 add’l doses, total AstraZeneca doses in PHL reach 525,600
(Eagle News) – The second batch of AstraZeneca vaccine doses from the COVAX facility of the World Health Organization arrived on Sunday night, March 7, completing the promised 525,600 initial doses of the vaccine.
There were 38,400 AstraZeneca doses that arrived on Sunday night, shortly after 7 p.m. Added to the March 4 delivery of 487,200 doses, the total AstraZeneca doses that arrived from the COVAX facility reached 525,600 in all, said vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez.
These 38,400 doses could not be accommodated in the commercial flight that brought the initial batch of AstraZeneca vaccines on March 4 due to cargo limitations, he explained.
Galvez thanked WHO, the UNICEF, and GAVI alliance of the COVAX Facility that made possible the arrival of the promised doses.
“We are very thankful,” the vaccine czar said.
Galvez said that the COVAX facility will also be delivering another tranche of vaccines, but did not detail how many that would be.
-More vaccines deployed in provinces-
“Halos everyday meron nang dumadating na mga vaccines,” he said, referring to the vaccine arrivals since the 600,000 doses of SInovac vaccines which were delivered on Feb. 28, exactly a week ago.
Galvez said that for this week, some 240,720 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine will be sent nationwide, with the priority being the regions with the highest COVID-19 cases, namely Metro Manila, Central Visayas, Region 4-A, and other areas of the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR).
As of Sunday, there were 1,500 AstraZeneca doses delivered to Metro Manila, 13,000 to region 4A or the Calabarzon region, 10,000 doses for CAR, and 20,000 doses for Central Luzon.
Galvez said that the Philippine government is also expecting the arrival of another 1.4 million doses of the Sinovac vaccines from China, and hopes to complete the vaccination of health workers in hospitals this month.
(Eagle News Service)
