The national government is eyeing to fully vaccinate at least 50 million Filipinos against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) before the end of 2021 and it is inching closer to hitting its target with the support of international partners, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said Friday, Oct. 29.
In fact, Galvez, also the chief implementer of the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19, welcomed on Thursday 896,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine which were donated by the Japanese government to the Philippines.
"These donated vaccines will enable the Philippines to realize its goal of achieving a daily jab rate of 1.5 million doses and fully vaccinate at least 50 million Filipinos by year end," Galvez said in a statement.
"The arrival of this latest vaccine donation from Japan comes at a crucial time as the Philippines continues to expand the coverage of its vaccine rollout which now includes minors within the 12 to 17 age group," he added.
The government originally intended to vaccinate 77 million eligible Filipinos, or 70 percent of the 110 million total population, but it adjusted its vaccination target after the Delta variant wrought havoc to the communities and slowed down the national inoculation program back in August.
Galvez expressed optimism that the new target will be achieved by the country as the bulk of its vaccine purchases for 2021 have started arriving in the third quarter of the year while other nations continue to donate life-saving jabs to the country.
The latest vaccine shipment is part of the 1,961,600 Japan-donated AstraZeneca doses that are scheduled to arrive this week. Another shipment consisting of 1,065,600 AstraZeneca jabs are set to arrive on October 30.
Back in July, Japan had also donated 1,124,100 AstraZeneca doses which brought its total donations to the Philippines to 3,085,700 doses.
Galvez said the vaccine donations from Japan are enough to fully vaccinate and protect 1.5 million Filipinos from the deadly virus.
For his part, Japanese Ambassador to the Philippines Kazuhiko Koshikawa emphasized the importance of vaccines in preventing the spread of COVID-19, drawing from their experience back in Japan.
"In Japan, we are currently seeing astonishing successes in our vaccination program. The rate of adult vaccination has increased significantly and the number of new infection cases a day had declined dramatically," Koshikawa said.
"I expect the same thing would happen soon in the Philippines," he added.
On October 27, the country registered 3,218 new cases of COVID-19 which was a significant drop from over 20,000 cases recorded a month ago when the Delta variant started wreaking havoc in the country.
Meanwhile, the country has received 100,528,240 doses of COVID-19 vaccines since the supplies started arriving in February. As of October 28, 26,803,677 individuals have already been fully vaccinated while 31,015,126 others have received their first dose.