The Philippines on Thursday received two batches of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines adding up to 4,216,290 doses.
Of the number, 3,436,290 were donated by the US government to the country through the Covax facility.
The remaining 780,000 were reformulated vaccines the country procured to inoculate minors.
“This is so important for the kids of the Philippines so that they can go back to school, so they can enjoy sports, so they can enjoy cultural events, so that they can be normal kids again,” Michelle Lang-Alli, health director of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), said during the arrival of the vaccines at the NAIA Terminal 3.
“The USAID is very excited to continue supporting the vaccine rollout. We will now add pediatrics to our plan and continue to support the general rollout and also the vaccine for the kids,” Lang-Alli added.
The government earlier this week kicked off the vaccination drive for children aged five to 11, which aims to administer at least 15.56 million Covid-19 jabs.
The country has received 222,449,820 Covid-19 vaccine doses since February 2021.
More than 60 million Filipinos have been fully vaccinated. John Ezekiel J. Hirro