More than 1.9 million doses of United States-made Moderna and Pfizer coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines have been delivered to the country, which brought the current jab supply to 130 million doses.
A total of 1,306,000 Moderna were transported by China Airlines flight CI 701 at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 1 on Friday morning, Nov. 19.
Meanwhile, Air Hong Kong flight LD456 carried 609,570 doses of Pfizer at NAIA Terminal 3 on Thursday night.
Undersecretary Isidro Purisima, deputy Presidential Peace Adviser, said the Moderna delivery was the third shipment from the US-based vaccine manufacturer this month. The first two deliveries were made last Nov. 13 and 16 and Moderna has already sent a total of 13,924,700 doses to the Philippines.
Meanwhile, it was the sixth shipment from Pfizer for this month. Pfizer has provided a total of 34,765,380 doses to the country so far.
Purisima said the Moderna and Pfizer jabs will be used for the booster vaccination of healthcare workers, who are listed in the A1 priority category of the vaccination program, as well as the senior citizens (A2) and persons with co-morbidities (A3).
“Right now, we have started the vaccination of our healthcare workers since 17 November and we will follow the booster shots of our elderly as well as for the A3,” he said.
“With the arrival of many vaccines, we have many vaccines and we will be ramping up our vaccination,” he added.
The total vaccine supply has now reached 130,359,970 doses. Of these, a total of 73,917,573 doses have been administered as of Thursday while 56,442,397 doses were in government stockpile.
A total of 40,922,022 individuals have already received their first dose while 32,993,083 others have been fully vaccinated.
The fully vaccinated population represented 42.77 percent of 77 million eligible population that the government intends to inoculate by year-end to achieve herd immunity.
The government has vaccinated a total of 1,154,131 individuals last Thursday.