The country’s supply of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines was replenished anew with the arrival of more than 365,000 doses of government-procured Pfizer on Wednesday night, August 18.
Secretary Carlito Galvez, Jr., chief implementer of the National Task Force Against COVID-19 and the country’s vaccine czar, said a total of 51,480 were immediately delivered to Cebu City while another 51,480 doses are expected to be transported to Davao City today.
“The remaining 262,080 of doses will be immediately delivered to the PharmaServ Express’ cold-chain facility in Marikina City for temporary storage before being deployed to the National Capital Region, and other areas which have not yet received Pfizer vaccines,” said Galvez.
Galvez and US Embassy Chargé d'Affaires John C. Law were present during the arrival of the vaccines.
With the delivery on Wednesday night, the country has so far received a total of 2,116,530 Pfizer doses. This is part of the 40 million doses the country has secured from the American pharmaceutical firm.
The national government has also received a total of 2,472,210 donated Pfizer doses coming from the COVAX facility.
“These Pfizer doses will be delivered to areas which have not received this brand of vaccine, and we will be trying to roll out them. So that in the future, once the deliveries of Pfizer will pick up, they (LGUs) are well aware and well-trained on how to handle the sensitive case of Pfizer,” said Galvez.
As of August 18, a total of 42,940,390 COVID-19 vaccine doses have arrived in the Philippines.