(Eagle News) – Some 2 million more doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from COVAX Facility arrived in the country on Saturday, May 8, bringing to over 7.5 million doses the vaccines that have been delivered in the country.
The two million AstraZeneca doses that arrived on Saturday came via a Singapore Airlines commercial flight at around 12:50 p.m., and is the biggest batch of vaccine deliveries so far. This will add to the previous 525,600 doses of AstraZeneca that arrived in March, and which have already been used up as first dose to vaccine recipients.
The AstraZeneca doses arrived a day after 1.5 million Sinovac doses arrived in the country.
The arrival of the AstraZeneca doses from COVAX Facility came after the Department of Health (DOH) announced the “official resumption of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine for all eligible population” including those below 60 years old, following the Philippine Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the DOH All Experts Group on Vaccines.
“Previously, DOH adopted the recommendation of the FDA to temporarily suspend the use of AstraZeneca for individuals aged below 60 years old, after recent reports of very rare cases of Vaccine-Induced Thrombosis and Thrombocytopenia (VITT),” the DOH said.
“Based on current evidence, VITT is a very rare condition of blood clots associated with low platelet counts that can occur 4 to 28 days after receiving a viral vector vaccine such as AstraZeneca,” it said.
“The DOH urged the public to get their second dose of COVID-19 vaccines. The benefits of additional protection against COVID-19 could only be achieved by completing both doses of the vaccines,” the DOH said.
The second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccines is usually given three months after the second dose. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends an interval of between 8 to 12 weeks or two to three months for AstraZeneca doses.
(Eagle News Service)
