The Philippines received Wednesday night August 25, 2021, the latest shipment of government procured Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines consisting of 362,700 doses.

This brings to 4.95 million doses of Pfizer brand vaccines the country has procured since June 2021.

Some 312,390 doses of the Pfizer vaccines arrived Wednesday night at 8:30 p.m.huat the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) terminal 3 from COVAX facility in Belgium on board Air Hong Kong DHL flight.

A separate shipment of 50,310 doses of Pfizer was also flown directly from the COVAx facility to Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA) also on Wednesday August 25, 2021. 

Out of the 312,390 doses, the 262,080 doses were consigned to DOH Manila while the 50,310 doses consigned to DOH-Davao and were flown Thursday morning to Davao International Airport by Philippine Airlines

Assistant Secretary Wilben Mayor of OPAPP and Economic Counselor David Gamble from the US Embassy, welcomed the shipment and were immediately transported to a cold storage facility in Marikina City.

The National Task Force against COVID-19 (NTF) announced that it is working to ensure a "steady supply" of vaccines next month.

The latest shipment of the Pfizer vaccine is part of the 5 million doses that are expected to arrive in the country this week. Aside from Pfizer, 3 million more doses of China-made Sinovac and 1.8 million doses of US-made Moderna will also be delivered, NTF chief implementer and vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. said.

During President Duterte's Talk to the People on Monday, Galvez reported that the NTF against COVID-19 is eyeing to boost the country's vaccine stock with 25 million doses in September.

Galvez said the government has signed a purchase order for an additional 10 million doses of Sinovac. In addition, he said the country is expected to receive 5 million doses of Pfizer and around 3 to 4 million doses of Moderna vaccines.

Image courtesy of Pfizer via AP

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