Ten months since it started accepting coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines, more than 200 million doses of procured and donated jabs have already been delivered to the country as it is poised to sustain the national vaccination program in 2022.
Assistant Secretary Wilben Mayor, head of National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19 strategic communications on current operations, said the vaccine supply stood at 200,885,005 doses as of Sunday night, Dec. 26.
The latest delivery included 1,957,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine which were procured by the private sector. It arrived at Ninoy Aquino International Airport around 7:30 p.m.
“This shows the commitment of our government to fight the COVID-19 for our people,” Mayor said.
The government started buying and accepting donations of vaccines in February.
In the following month, it rolled out the national vaccination program to protect the Filipinos from the dreaded disease.
Despite the abundant supply now, the government’s vaccination program appears to slow down as the number of fully vaccinated individuals remained at 47.1 million whereas the government aims to vaccinate 54 million Filipinos by the end of 2021.
There were also 56.8 million individuals who received their first dose and 1.3 million other who had their booster shots.
In the remaining week of 2021, the NTF appears to miss its vaccination target for this year and the recent devastation by typhoon Odette contributed to this, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. had said in previous interviews.
However, Mayor expressed optimism that the vaccination program will pick up its phase in the first quarter of 2022 where the aim is to fully vaccinate 77 million Filipinos – or 70 percent of the 110 million total population – due to the threat of the Omicron variant.
The Department of Health (DOH) announced on Monday the detection of the fourth case of Omicron in the country.
“Again, we encourage the unvaccinated population to get the vaccine because we now have plenty of supplies. We have the threat of Omicron so we need to protect everybody,” Mayor said.