MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines has so far vaccinated more than half a million individuals against COVID-19 since it began its vaccination program on March 1.
According to data from the Department of Health and the National Task Force against COVID-19 released Wednesday, there are already 508,332 individuals who were vaccinated as of March 23.
These were administered across 1,759 vaccination sites in the country.
VACCINE STATISTICS | As of 23 March 2021, 6PM, 1,759 vaccination sites are conducting COVID-19 vaccination in various sites in 17 regions.#COVID19PH #WeHealAsOnePH #COVIDvaccinePH #ExplainExplainExplain pic.twitter.com/k0jl8h0iw6
— National Task Force Against COVID19 (@ntfcovid19ph) March 24, 2021
At least 98 percent of the available vaccines or 1,105,500 out of 1,125,600 have already been distributed to various regions.
“The vaccine of HCWs [healthcare workers] is being done in batches to ensure adequate staffing in health facilities, in light of possible adverse events,” the DOH and the NTF said.
The Philippines has been vaccinating healthcare workers using donated Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines or CoronaVac from China and donated AstraZeneca vaccines from the World Health Organization-led COVAX facility.
On Wednesday, the country received 400,000 doses of CoronaVac from the Chinese government on top of their initial donation of 600,000 that arrived last February 28.