MANILA, Philippines — An additional 500,000 doses of CoronaVac, the COVID-19 vaccine from China’s Sinovac BioTech arrived in the Philippines on Sunday afternoon.
The procured vaccine doses arrived in flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) flight PR359 at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 2 at 5:18 p.m, according to a report by state-run media Peoples’ Television (PTV).
This is the second batch of vaccines procured by the Philippine government that arrived in the country. The first batch, which was one million doses, arrived on March 29.
The Philippines has procured some 25 million doses of the said vaccine.
Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. earlier said 1.5 million CoronaVac doses are expected to arrive in the Philippines this month. Apart from this, 500,000 doses of Russia’s Gamaleya Institute’s Sputnik V vaccine is expected to be delivered in April.
Apart from the procured vaccines, China has sent one million donated CoronaVac vaccines in two batches: 600,000 were delivered on Feb. 23 while 400,000 arrived on March 24.