Over 5.85M vaccine doses delivered in 2 days bringing total jab doses in PHL to over 26M

(Eagle News) In a span of two days, the Philippines received over 5.85 million doses of life-saving COVID-19 vaccines including the 3.2 million doses of Johnson and Johnson’s single-shot Janssen vaccines that arrived on Friday, July 16, and Saturday, July 17.
Among the recent vaccine deliveries were the 1.15 million AstraZeneca doses which arrived on Friday morning, and the 1.5 million Sinovac doses that were delivered on Saturday, July 17.
The first vaccine doses that were delivered on Friday, July 16 were the 1,150,800 AstraZeneca doses which arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 1 at past 10 a.m. This was the first shipment of AstraZeneca vaccines which were purchased by the private sector and local government units (LGUs). National Task Force against COVID-19 chief implementer and vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., and Health Secretary Francisco Duque III welcomed the delivery, together with Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion and British Embassy in Manila deputy head of mission Alastair Totty.

-Total AZ doses reach 6.8M-
“These LGUs and private sector-procured vaccines were secured through the ‘A Dose of Hope’ initiative led by Concepcion under the tripartite agreement signed between the private sector, LGUs, national government, and biopharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca,” the NTF against COVID-19 said.
This latest shipment brings the total number of AstraZeneca doses delivered to the Philippines to 6,858,900, of which 1,124,100 doses were donated by the Japanese Government, while the 4,584,000 doses came from the COVAX facility.
-First shipment of single-dose J&J vaccines-
Later that afternoon, July 16, the first batch of single-shot Janssen anti-COVID- vaccines consisting of 1,606,600 doses arrived in the country.
The vaccines produced by American pharmaceutical firm Johnson & Johnson (J&J) were donated by the United States government through the COVAX facility.
Secretaries Galvez and Duque welcomed the shipment, along with other health and embassy officials namely Health Usec. Carolina Taino, NTF adviser Dr. Ted Herbosa, US Embassy in the Philippines Chargé d’Affaires John C. Law, Sean Callahan, Acting USAID Mission Director, UNICEF Representative to the Philippines Oyunsaikhan Dendevnorov, and WHO Philippines Officer-in-Charge and Medical Officer (ETB) Dr. Rajendra Yadav.
An additional 1,606,600 Janssen doses arrive on Saturday afternoon, July 17.
The arrival of the vaccines from Johnson and Johnson is significant as a single dose administered is enough to be fully vaccinated. No second dose is required.
-Total Sinovac doses reach 14.5M-
On Saturday morning, July 17, the 1.5 million doses of Sinovac were delivered from China bringing the total Sinovac doses that arrived since February at 14.5 million.

Because of this, the total vaccine doses delivered to the country were more than 27.8 million.
Philippine health officials as well as vaccine experts stressed the importance of vaccination against COVID-19 to protect the population against getting the severe form of the disease amid the presence of highly infectious variants, the latest of which to enter the country was the deadly Delta variant that originated from India.
The Delta variant, so far, is the most infectious among the COVID-19 variants of concern.
(Eagle News Service)