The Philippines on Saturday morning received 1 million Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines and 260,800 Sinopharm vaccines, the National Task Force Against COVID-19 said.

The Sinovac vaccines were procured, while the Sinopharm vaccines were donated by the Chinese government, the NTF said.

The vaccines were flown in on a Philippine Airlines flight that arrived at 6:40 a.m. at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 2.

Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Assistant Secretary Wilben Mayor and Department of Health Director Ariel Valencia were at NAIA to oversee the arrival of the vaccines.

So far, the Philippines has received 26.5 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine. Of this number, 24.6 million doses were procured by the national government.

The Sinopharm vaccines that arrived on Saturday on the other hand completes the one million doses the Chinese government promised to donate to the country.

"Malaking tulong ito sa ating mga kababayan para sa pagsalba ng mga may sakit. Lalong lalo ngayon na may Delta variant at tumataas ang kaso natin, malaking tulong itong mga dumating na vaccines," Mayor said.

(This is a big help to our countrymen, especially now that the Delta variant is here and the number of cases of COVID-19 is increasing.)

The NTF said a total of 48,522,890 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been delivered to the country so far, including the almost 5 million doses of vaccines that arrived earlier this week. --KG, GMA News