1 M CoronaVac jabs arrive; China to donate more vaccines to PH
The country has received an additional one million doses of the anti-coronavirus disease (COVID19) vaccine CoronaVac, which were transported by Chinese manufacturer Sinovac Biotech on Friday morning, July 30.
The procured vaccines is the 19th tranche of life-saving jabs that have been delivered by Sinovac to the Philippines since February. The shipment arrived around 7:35 a.m. at Terminal 3 of Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) via Cebu Pacific flight 5J 723.
Prior to this, some 1.5 million doses of Sinovac jabs were received by the government on Thursday.
"Per DOH [Department of Health], the bulk of this latest vaccine shipment will be deployed to NCR- Plus while the rest will be dispatched to cities tagged as high-risk areas," the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19 said.
The NCR- Plus is composed of the National Capital Region (NCR) and the adjacent provinces of Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna, and Cavite.
The vaccines arrived hours before Malacañang announced the reimposition of Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ), the strictest form of lockdown, in the NCR from August 5 to 20.
The NTF said the new shipment will help speed up the vaccination program of the local government units (LGUs) to counter the potentially devastating effects of the Delta variant. This is the same variant that sent India to its worst surge in April, and the cause of the surge of infections in Indonesia and Thailand.
Last July 27, the country recorded the highest daily vaccine throughput, with a total of 659,029 doses administered in a single day. This is the first time the government breached its target of administering 500,000 doses per day.
"Our vaccine supply will be able to match the growing demand by October as we have already seen our vaccination rate picking up because our LGUs [local government units] are ramping up their capacities to quickly inoculate their constituents," said vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. Wednesday, July 28.
The latest vaccine delivery brought the country's total supply to 33,860,700 doses.
Due to the increasing demands for COVID-19 vaccines in the Philippines, Chinese Ambassador to Manila Huang Xilian announced that Beijing will donate more to increase vaccine supply to the country.
Huang made this announcement during the inauguration of the Chinafunded P1.46-billion Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge on Thursday, July 29.
“China has become Philippines’ largest and stablest source of the vaccine and other anti-pandemic goods. As the Philippines faces increasing demand for vaccines, we will donate more and successively increase the supply of vaccines to the Philippines,” the Chinese envoy said.
Huang stressed that China has been standing in solidarity with the Philippines in fighting the pandemic, being the first country to donate test kits, the first country to provide PPEs, first to dispatch a medical expert team, the first to donate vaccines, and the first to export a large number of vaccines to the country. (With a report from Roy C.Mabasa)