More than 96.7 million vaccine doses already delivered to PHL
(Eagle News) The Philippines received another 3 million doses of Sinovac vaccines on Sunday, October 24, considered the country’s 100th shipment of COVID-19 vaccines since the first delivery this February 28.
This was according to the National Task Force against COVID-19. This latest shipment brings the total vaccine doses to of 97,678,340 as of Oct. 24.
“Of this latest shipment, 1 million doses were donated by the Government of China, while 2 million were procured by the Philippine government,” the NTF said in a release.
National Task Force Against COVID-19 Chief Implementer and vaccine czar Secretary Carlito G. Galvez, Jr. highlighted the significance of the 100th vaccine shipment to the national vaccination program.
“Remember that the first vaccine arrival in the country was also a donation from China..That’s February 28,” Galvez said.
The vaccine czar thanked the Chinese government and Sinovac for their donation of the life-saving vaccines.
The NTF said a total of 44.5 million doses of Sinovac vaccines have so far been delivered to the country, of which 41.6 million were procured by the national government. China has so far donated a total of 3 million vaccine doses to the Philippines.
“Aside from China’s donation of 1 million CoronaVac vaccines last February, it also shipped 1 million doses of Sinopharm vaccines to the country last August 2021,” the NTF said.
“This demonstrates the kind of friendship from the Chinese government and Chinese people to the Philippine government and Philippine people,” Chinese Ambassador Huang Xilian said.
“We hope that vaccines from China will further contribute to bringing further down the cases here and bring back the normalcy,” the ambassador added.
The NTF said that among those who witnessed the arrival of the latest Sinovac shipment were Foreign Affairs Acting Undersecretary Antonio Morales, Department of Health Undersecretary Ma. Carolina Vidal-Taiño, and DOH Director Ariel Valencia also witnessed the arrival of the vaccines.
(Eagle News Service)