More than one million doses of AstraZeneca coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine were donated by Japan to the Philippines on Saturday noon, Oct. 30.
The shipment carrying 1,065,600 doses of AstraZeneca jabs arrived around 12:30 p.m. at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 1 via Nippon Airways flight NH8595.
Dr. Ted Herbosa, special adviser of the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19, said the vaccines will be deployed to highly populated and highly urbanized cities (HUCs) outside the National Capital Region (NCR) to allow more people to get inoculated.
Among the target areas where the fresh supply of AstraZeneca will go to include Central Luzon (Region 3), Calabarzon (Region 4A), Eastern Visayas (Region 8), and Northern Mindanao (Region 10).
“Talagang doon sa area na matatao (It’s really going to areas that are densely populated). We have regions that are highly populated, highly urbanized. We want more vaccines to be delivered there kasi (because) our initial vaccines were given to HUCs in NCR, Cebu, and Davao so now we’re targeting regions outside those areas,” Herbosa told reporters at the airport.
He thanked the Japanese government and people for the vaccine donation. Tokyo has donated a total of 3,085,700 doses of AstraZeneca to Manila so far.
Aside from the deployment, some of the supplies may also be stored for the planned third dose inoculation of healthcare workers and individuals with comorbidities next month, Herbosa bared.
By November, the government aims to raise the daily vaccination output to one million to 1.5 million doses from the current output of 500,000 doses. On Friday, the government inoculated around 700,000 doses, according to the NTF adviser.
“These will be very useful for the vaccine deployment to other parts of the Philippines so we can reach our target,” Herbosa said.
Japan Embassy Economic Minister Masahiro Nakata hopes that the vaccines will help the country reach herd immunity as soon as possible.
“I hope this makes the Philippines’ vaccination better and the Philippine people enjoy a better Christmas,” Nakata said.
The current vaccine supply has already reached 102,567,280 doses. More than 27.1 million individuals have been fully vaccinated while 31.8 million others have received their first dose as of Oct. 29.