A total of 1.5 million doses of CoronaVac vaccines will be delivered on Thursday morning, June 17 -- the 10th shipment to be made by Chinese manufacturer Sinovac Biotech to the Philippines since they started giving vaccines in February.
Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., vaccine czar and chief implementer of the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19, said the vaccines will be fetched from Beijing via a Cebu Pacific plane (flight 5J671). It is estimated to land at Terminal 2 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in Pasay City around 7:30 a.m.
The vaccines will then be transported to a cold storage facility of Pharmaserv Express, Inc. in Marikina City where it will be preserved prior to distribution to local government units (LGUs).
The shipment will be among the biggest single-day delivery of the Chinese vaccines in the Philippines. Prior to this, Sinovac only brings in 500,000 to one million doses of Coronavac jabs.
This will also be the third shipment to be completed by Sinovac this month. One million doses each were delivered on June 6 and June 10 by the Chinese vaccine manufacturer.
Once delivered, the country's vaccine supply will jump to 14,205,870 doses.
The delivery will be deemed crucial as there is a strong clamor for more vaccine allocations in regions outside Metro Manila, especially in Mindanao, where a spike of cases are being observed.
Last Monday, Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez blamed Galvez for the deaths of the residents due to the lack of supply of the life-saving jabs in the city.
In response, Galvez apologized for the inadequate allocation in Mindanao and vowed to produce more vaccines for them in the coming weeks.
Around six million doses of vaccines are expected to arrive in the remaining days of June, including the Sinovac delivery.