The additional 1,187,550 Pfizer coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines procured by the national government arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 on Thursday evening, Dec. 23.
The arrival of the vaccines was welcomed by the National Task Force (NTF) against COVID-19 and Kellia Cummins, Director of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law (INL) Enforcement Affairs of the United States Embassy in Manila.
In a PTV interview, NTF special adviser Dr. Teodoro “Ted” Herbosa thanked the government of the United States and the pharmaceutical company Pfizer for the continuous delivery of vaccines to the Philippines.
Herbosa likewise recalled the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval to use Pfizer vaccines to individuals aged 5 to 11 year olds, highlighting that this was a big development in the country’s fight against COVID-19.
He reiterated that the country’s goal right now is to ramp up its inoculation drives in order to achieve the vaccination target in 2021.
“Our goal now is to catch up with the target of 54 million fully vaccinated. We are currently at 45 million fully vaccinated. We have six vaccination days left and hopefully, we can achieve the remainder of the eight million in the six days,” said Herbosa.
Experts from the NTF and the Department of Health (DOH) previously said that the country aims to fully vaccinate 54 million individuals against COVID-19 by year-end.
The NTF added that it is aiming to “ramp up” the vaccinations in areas like Region 3 (Central Luzon) and Region 4A (Calabarzon) as the country’s vaccination drive slowed down due to the recent onslaught of Typhoon Odette. (Charie Mae F. Abarca)