Another huge shipment of Sinovac vaccines--two million doses in all--has arrived in the Philippines on Thursday afternoon, Aug. 12.

The shipment was flown in 5:50 p.m. Thursday at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 2 by Philippine Airlines (PAL) flight PR 359. The plane originated from Beijing, China, which the drug is manufactured.
The life-saving jabs were immediately transported to the PharmaServ Express cold storage facility in Marikina City.
With the latest arrival, the Sinovac (CoronaVac) brand now makes up 22.5 million out of the over 41.5 million coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines that the Philippines has in its entire inventory. This is the most of any brand.
The shipment was also the third to arrive in the county since Wednesday, Aug. 11.
On Wednesday afternoon, an Etihad Airways flight delivered 100,000 doses of Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine to NAIA Terminal 3. Also known as Sinopharm-HayatVax, the jabs were donated by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government to the Philippines.

Then, at 9:20 p.m. that same day, a total of 813,150 doses of the American-made Pfizer vaccine also touched down at NAIA Terminal 3. Air Hong Kong flight LD456 transported the jabs.
Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., vaccine czar and chief implementer of the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19, said the vaccines will be distributed to areas with surging cases amid the spread of the Delta variant.
Metro Manila in particular has been stepping up inoculation efforts despite the implementation of an enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), which is the strictest quarantine level. However, the scarcity in the supply of the vaccines has been a constant problem ever since the national government launched its mass vaccination program against COVID-19 last March.