There will be an estimated 100 million doses of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines in the country by the end of October if all the scheduled deliveries are completed, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. disclosed.
In the remaining week of September and in October, around 41.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were expected to arrive. So far, the vaccine supply count stood at 64,942,000 doses.
"Tuluy-tuloy na pong dumarating ang ating mga bakuna. By the end of October, we will reach more or less 100 million doses delivered to the Philippines," Galvez said.
Once the deliveries are completed by the end of October, the cumulative deliveries will reach around 106 million doses.
For the month of September, around 12 million doses were scheduled to arrive in the remaining week as a total of 13,041,410 doses were already delivered from the expected 25 million doses.
Among those delivered this month were 4,227,210 doses of Pfizer including 1.45 million procured jabs and 2.77 million United States (US)-donated shots; 6.5 million doses of Sinovac-CoronaVac shots; 1,163,200 doses of AstraZeneca shots; 961,000 doses of Moderna; and 190,000 doses of Sputnik V.
Meanwhile, around 29.5 million doses are set to be transported in October.
The government plans to inoculate 70 million Filipinos by year end, or 70 percent of the total 110 million total population, to achieve herd immunity. The threshold was increased to 80 to 90 million due to the threat of the Delta variant but the added target will likely be inoculated in the first quarter of 2022.
"We are continuously working on increasing our vaccine inventory to achieve our goal of completely inoculating 77 million of the country’s total population by year-end," Galvez said.
As of Sept. 20, a total of 41,793,930 doses were administered nationwide. There were 22,970,212 individuals who have received their first dose while 18,823,718 have been fully vaccinated.