MANILA, Philippines — More doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine reached the Philippines on Monday night as part of the fresh donation from the COVAX Facility.
The global initiative, co-led by the World Health Organization, has vowed to send in 10 million new vaccine doses to the country in the coming weeks, as it continues to face record-high coronavirus cases.
An Air Hongkong flight carrying the additional Pfizer jabs landed at around 9 p.m. of September 20, according to state-run PTV 4.
This shipment brought the country's number of supply from the said vaccine to 9.18 million doses. Of that, 3.9 million were procured by the government while 5.2 million were from COVAX.
Yesterday, the country also received more than two million Pfizer doses still from the global initiative.
The WHO's country representative, Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinghe, said it was the first tranche of the 10 million more donated doses.
Government data as of September 19 showed there are now 18.56 million Filipinos fully vaccinated for COVID-19.
That figure is out of officials' target of inoculating up to 70 million this year, in a bid to meet "population protection."
Some 22.85 million, meanwhile, have received their first dose.