The Philippines has welcomed the arrival of more AstraZeneca and Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine doses, pushing the country’s total number of jabs to over 117 million.
Some 793,900 AstraZeneca doses, which were donated by the German government, arrived on Tuesday. The doses complete the European country’s pledge of 1.6 million vaccine doses to the Philippines.
Three million Sinovac doses arrived on Wednesday.
During the arrival of the AstraZeneca doses, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. urged local chief executives to expedite the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.
“We cannot slow down our vaccination, we are pushing you to vaccinate because we are racing against time,” Galvez said.
“We are appealing [for] your sense of urgency. We are in the midst of a pandemic. We need to move faster. We are fighting an unseen enemy and there is some sort of cycle that after two months the cases will rise again,” he added.
The Philippines has received 117,245,400 vaccine doses to date.
The government aims to inoculate 80 to 90 percent of the population to achieve herd immunity. John Ezekiel J. Hirro