PH gets nearly 4M doses of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine from US
MANILA, Philippines – Close to four million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine arrived on Monday, so far the largest single-day shipment donated by the United States government to the Philippines.
The additional 3,999,060 vaccine doses delivered in the country were coursed through the Covax facility as part of the 1.2 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses that Washington is making available for distribution, the U.S. Embassy in Manila said in a statement.
“We are immensely proud that our friends, partners, and allies in the Philippines are receiving this historic shipment. This significant donation underscores the United States’ commitment to continue working with our Philippine partners to combat COVID-19 even as we face serious challenges around the world,” U.S. Embassy Chargé d’Affaires Heather Variava said.
Michelle Lang-Alli, director of the U.S. Agency for International Development Philippines Health Office, joined Philippine government officials and other stakeholders at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport to receive the vaccine shipment.
With the recently donated vaccine doses, the country has already received around 33.3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine from the U.S., according to the embassy.
Meanwhile, the COVAX has provided the Philippines with almost 74 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, which are enough to vaccinate one in every five Filipinos, it also noted.
Aside from the donated vaccine doses, the embassy said the U.S. has provided the Philippines with more than P1.9 billion worth of COVID-19 assistance to aid testing, critical care, communication initiatives, health worker protection and training, vaccine deployment, and supplies and equipment needed by the medical frontliners in the country. — Jericho Zafra, INQUIRER.net trainee
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