The government got a much-needed boost of vaccine supply with the expected arrival of more than 900,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines from China and the United States on Wednesday.
The shipments of Pfizer and Sinopharm vaccines also brings the country’s vaccine stock to more than 39 million doses.
The Philippine government purchased the doses of Pfizer while the United Arab Emirates donated the China-brand vaccine.
Pharmaserv Express, the government’s third party cold-chain facility and logistics partner, will receive the doses upon arrival at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
After the packaging process at the firm’s facility in Marikina City, the doses will be delivered to various local government units, especially in the areas with the high number of active cases of coronavirus disease.
With the arrival of the first 100,000 doses shipment of Sinopharm, and additional 813,150 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, the Philippines now obtained 39,515,350 total doses of vaccines since February.
The country’s vaccine stock will breach the 40-million mark with the arrival of two million doses of Sinovac vaccine, also coming from China today.
Customs-NAIA officials said of the total number of doses in the latest Pfizer shipment, 102,960 will be transported via domestic flight to Davao. The Port of NAIA will first process the clearance for its release prior to its departure from Manila, they added.
Another 102,960 doses of Pfizer will go straight to Cebu via Air Hong Kong flight LD-457, which was scheduled to land at 6:45 p.m.
According to the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF), the country is expected to receive 22 million doses of vaccine this month.
National Task Force Against COVID-19 chief implementer and Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez said assured that the storage for the vaccines will not be a problem.
He said Pharmaserv can accommodate 40 million doses that require various storage temperatures at any given time, from Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Sinovac and Sputnik V.