More than 1.2 million doses of vaccines against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) that were made in China were delivered to the country on Saturday morning, Aug. 21.
One million doses of government-procured Sinovac and 260,800 doses of donated Sinopharm jabs arrived at Terminal 2 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in Pasay City at exactly 6:39 a.m.
The vaccines were fetched from Beijing by Philippine Airlines (PAL) flight PR 361.
Out of the 26 million doses of Sinovac that were bought by the government this year through loans from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), a total of 20 million doses have already been delivered to the government, according to Department of Health (DOH) Director Ariel Valencia.
Meanwhile, the Sinopharm vaccines were balance from around one million vaccine donation of the Chinese government to the Philippines. The initial 739,200 doses were sent by Beijing to Manila on Friday.
"Ang dumating ngayon ay balance ng supposedly na one million donated ng China. That is at least 260,800 doses at kasabay na dumating ng one million Sinovac na procured ng ating pamahalaan (What arrived today were the balance from the supposedly one million donated by China. That is at least 260,8000 doses and it arrived together with one million Sinovac that were procured by our government)," said Assistant Sec. Wilben Mayor, head of the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19's sub-task group on current operations.
"Malaking tulong ito sa ating mga kababayan para sa pagsalba ng ating mga maysakit at lalong-lalo na ngayon mayroong Delta variant, tumataas ang kaso antin. Kahapon lalo tumaas, malaking tulong itong mga vaccine (This will be a big help to our countrymen, to save the sick people especially now that we have the Delta variant and our cases are rising. Yesterday, the cases increased exponentially so these vaccines will be a big help)," he added.
A total of 17,231 new cases were recorded by the DOH on Friday. This was the highest single-day tally ever recorded since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.
Mayor said that the vaccines will be allocated to areas with rapidly rising COVID-19 cases. He said the distribution will be based on the number of cases, the daily attack rate, population density, and economic activities of a particular area.
"Ang disposition ng allocation depends on the rising cases ng mga COVID-19 natin. Equitable naman at we leave it to the Vaccine Cluster to see to it na magkakaroon naman lahat ng regions ng lugar dito sa ating bansa (The disposition of the allocation depends on the rising cases of COVID-19. It is equitable and we leave it to the Vaccine Cluster to see to it that all the regions in our country will have a supply)," he assured.
The newly delivered Sinopharm have been granted an emergency use authorization (EUA) so it will be ready for distribution but the Sinovac has no certificate of analysis (COA) yet from the manufacturer. The COA ensures that the vaccines are safe for consumption.
Valencia said the COA of Sinovac will likely be transmitted within one week by its manufacturer.
With the deliveries, the vaccine inventory has now reached 48,522,890 doses including 26.5 million doses of Sinovac and 1.1 million doses of Sinopharm.