Gov’t expects 25M COVID-19 vaccine doses in September, 114M doses in Q4

MANILA, Philippines — The government is expecting to receive 25 million COVID-19 vaccine doses in September and 114 million more doses in the fourth quarter of the year, vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. said Wednesday.

“For September, we are allocating 25 million. This is the delivery we are expecting… We are also expecting to have 114 million for the fourth quarter,” Galvez told the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee that currently looks into government expenses related to the fight against COVID-19.

“We are expecting that our main volumes, particularly from Pfizer, Sinovac, Gamaleya and Covax, including Moderna, will have the bulk of more or less 100 [million] plus doses by the fourth quarter,” he added.

LOOK: Projected allocation of COVID-19 vaccines per region for the rest of the year, according to vaccine czar Carlito Galvez. @inquirerdotnet pic.twitter.com/vYcvLIrIWM

— Cathrine Gonzales (@cgonzalesINQ) August 25, 2021

Galvez said the next distributions of COVID-19 vaccines to regions “will be equitable based on the number of unvaccinated for the first dose and second dose.”

Based on data presented by Galvez, both Central Luzon and Calabarzon will receive over three million vaccine doses in September. Nine other regions will receive over one million doses each. Metro Manila, on the other hand, will get 951,692 doses.

Meanwhile, Calabarzon will get the highest allocation for the fourth quarter at 17 million doses, followed by Central Luzon at 14 million. Metro Manila will receive over four million doses.

The Philippines has so far administered over 30 million COVID-19 vaccine doses since the inoculation program started in March, according to Galvez on Monday. He said 17.4 million doses were provided as first jabs. Meanwhile, over 13 million Filipinos are now fully vaccinated against the disease.

The country, now with 127,703 active cases, is battling a renewed surge of coronavirus infections as health authorities detect more cases of the highly transmissible Delta variant.

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