More than 800,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) were delivered to the country on Wednesday night, Aug. 11, which comprise the third tranche of jabs that were procured by the national government from the United States.
Air Hong Kong flight LD456 transported 813,150 doses of Pfizer jabs at Terminal 3 of Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in Pasay City around 9:20 p.m.
The first two tranches -- composed of 526,770 and 375,570 doses -- arrived on July 21 to 22, and July 26 respectively.
Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., vaccine czar and chief implementer of the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19, said the vaccines will be distributed in areas with surging cases amid the spread of the Delta variant.
These areas include the National Capital Region (NCR); Ilocos (Region 1); Calabarzon which covers Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, and Quezon (Region 4A); Iloilo in Visayas; and Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) among others.
"The Pfizer vaccines will be distributed to the surge areas specifically to highly urbanized centers," said Galvez, who attended the arrival ceremony. He was accompanied by United States Charge d' Affaires John Law.
Luzon got the majority of the supply with 607,230 doses while Visayas and Mindanao each received 102,960 doses.
Senior citizens (A2) and persons with co-morbidities (A3) remain the priority sectors to be given the newly delivered Pfizer shots. However, the vaccine czar gave the authority to local government units (LGUs) the authority to be flexible in choosing the group of individuals who will receive the Pfizer shots.
"Since we are racing against time, it is recommended by LGUs that we should be flexible on the sectors that will be vaccinated. As the vaccine czar, I am giving the flexibility to the LGUs to administer the vaccines in the most flexible way under the guidance of the President that all the vaccination sites will be orderly," Galvez said.
"Our guidance is that as much as possible, we still go to priority sector but if circumstances require that we vaccinate everybody that wanted to be vaccinated, we may do so but provided hanggang (up until) A3, A4, and A5," he noted, referring to persons with co-morbidities, economic frontliners, and indigent population.
Meanwhile, Law vowed that the United States government will continue to assist the Philippines in securing more vaccines for the inoculation of the Filipino people.
"We really believe that the path out of this pandemic is to provide as many vaccines as possible. The United States is determined to do all that they can to support the Philippines in these efforts," Law said.
He also praised Galvez for doing an "extraordinary work" in acquiring big volumes of vaccines to help the Filipinos be protected against the dreaded disease.
"The United States is very happy to see the vaccines continuing to come in large number in the Philippines. As you know, we've been working very closely with Secretary Galvez and his outstanding team, and they are doing an extraordinary work to bring as many vaccines as quickly as possible into the Philippines to help ensure the widest possible access," Law noted.
With the latest delivery, the country's vaccine supply now reached 39,515,350 doses. It includes 4,223,700 doses of Pfizer shots.
Other brands were 20.5 million doses of Sinovac; 7.2 million doses of AstraZeneca; 3.8 million doses of Moderna; 3.2 million doses of Johnson and Johnson; 350,000 doses of Sputnik V; and 100,000 doses of Sinopharm.