More than two million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines were delivered to the country by the Covax facility on Saturday afternoon, May 8, which brought the total supply to 7.5 million doses.

The 2,030,400 AstraZeneca vaccines were fetched via Singapore Airlines commercial flight SQ 0910. The plane landed at Terminal 3 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in Pasay City around 1 p.m.

Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., vaccine czar and chief implementer of the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19, witnessed the arrival of the vaccines with Health Secretary Francisco Duque III and testing czar Vince Dizon.

This was by far the biggest single shipment of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines in the country as the national government seeks to ramp up its free inoculation program, particularly in Metro Manila where it aims to achieve herd immunity by November.

The delivery came as the Department of Health (DOH) approved Friday the resumption of the use of AstraZeneca jabs after it was halted in April for persons below 60 years old. This, after concerns were raised on the reported development of "very rare" cases of blood clot among some vaccines as a possible adverse effect experienced in other countries such as the United States.

Meanwhile, the newly-delivered vaccines were brought to the Pharmaserv Express warehouse in Marikina City where it will be stored prior to its deployment to the hospitals.

The AstraZeneca vaccines were the third batch of jabs delivered by the Covax to the country. On March 1, the World Health Organization (WHO)-led facility handed over 525,600 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines to the national government. It was followed by the turnover of 38,400 doses on March 7.

In June, another 1.3 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines will arrive which are part of the supply procured by the private sector from British-Swedish manufacturer Oxford-AstraZeneca.

At present, the country has a total supply of 7,571,000 vaccine doses composed of Coronavac from Sinovac Biotech of China, AstraZeneca, and Sputnik V from Gamaleya Research Institute of Russia. More than two million doses have been administered as of May 4, according to the Department of Health (DOH) and NTF Against COVID-19.

The government is planning to inoculate around 70 million Filipinos, or around 70 percent of the country's total population, for the country to achieve herd immunity.

But Galvez had said in a Cabinet meeting last Monday that the target could be lowered to 50 million to prioritize the vaccination of 70 percent of the population in areas that are hardly hit by COVID-19 and have "economic and social importance," such as Metro Manila, Cebu, and Davao among others.