The government is on track with its acquisition of sufficient supply of coronavirus vaccines in the country, according to Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles.
As the country marked its first year in pandemic lockdown, Nograles assured that more vaccines are "on the way" amid the government's intensified efforts to inoculate 70 million Filipinos to achieve herd immunity.
The government has started its vaccination drive on March 1, giving COVID-19 shots to more than 100,000 health workers so far. The vaccine rollout comes amid growing concern about a surge in new cases of coronavirus in the country.
"We have taken concrete steps forward in our efforts to beat COVID-19, the first step of which is the vaccination of our country’s health workers," Nograles said in a statement in response to Manila Bulletin's queries.
"The government is now on track to secure enough vaccine doses to inoculate 70 million of our countrymen––the number needed to achieve herd immunity," he added.
The former Davao congressman serves as co-chair of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Infectious Diseases, the government's policy-making body in addressing the pandemic.
On Monday, March 15, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. announced the country is expected to receive around additional 2.3 million COVID-19 vaccine doses this month or early April. Galvez made the report about the vaccine supply to President Duterte following his visit to India to lock in more doses for the country.
According to Galvez, around 1.4 million vaccine doses from China's Sinovac and 979,200 AstraZeneca shots are expected to arrive either late March or early April.
The President earlier expressed concern about the country's limited supply of coronavirus vaccines, saying the current stocks were all donated. Duterte is worried the second dose of the vaccines might not arrive in time to boost the first jab taken by health workers in the country.
Around 1.1 million doses of vaccines -- 600,000 Sinovac doses donated by China and 525,600 AstraZeneca doses from the COVAX facility -- have arrived in the country so far. Almost 90 percent of the doses had already been deployed for distribution to health workers across the country.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III tried to ease the President's concern about the supply for the second dose during the meeting Monday night. He has recommended the use of all the AstraZeneca vaccines as first dose to benefit more health workers. The shipment of more AstraZeneca vaccines is expected to arrive in time for the second dose of the recipients, Duque assured the President.