The Philippines has received a shipment of 1.5 million Sinovac vaccine doses, the National Task Force (NTF) Against Covid-19 announced on Saturday.

The doses arrived in Manila on Friday.

NTF special adviser Dr. Teodoro Herbosa said the doses would be deployed to various regions outside Metro Manila.

“Naka-allocate na ‘to in the different regions kasi ayon ang target natin..kasi mataas na ‘yung vaccination rate natin. We’re 52 percent fully vaccinated in NCR, 80 percent partially vaccinated,” Herbosa said.

The country has received a total of 54,794,130 Covid-19 vaccine doses to date.

Chinese vaccines make up 31 million doses of the total, of which 29,100,000 doses were procured by the national government.

The Philippines has tallied 2,206,021 Covid-19 cases as of Sept. 11.

It recorded a single-day high of 26,303 new cases on Saturday.

The Philippines aims to vaccinate up to 90 percent of its population to achieve herd immunity. It has so far vaccinated over 15 million Filipinos. John Ezekiel J. Hirro