Philippines gets 500,000 more vaccine doses from China

JAKARTA, Indonesia

The Philippines received 500,000 more doses of a COVID-19 vaccine from China on Thursday.

The shipment of the vaccine developed by Chinese firm Sinovac arrived at Ninoy Aquino International Airport in the capital Manila.

Carlito Galvez Jr., chief implementer of the National Task Force Against COVID-19, said the new batch will be distributed as soon as possible.

“We will soon begin distributing the vaccine, especially to high-risk areas,” he said on Facebook.

The Philippines has received 3.5 million doses of Sinovac’s CoronaVac vaccine to date, including 1 million doses donated by the Chinese government.

Manila is also waiting for a shipment of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine that is expected to arrive next month.

As of Wednesday, the Philippines had administered over 1.8 million vaccine shots – more than 1.56 million people have got a first dose and 246,986 others have been fully vaccinated.

The country’s overall COVID-19 tally is now over 1.02 million, including more than 17,000 fatalities.

* Writing by Maria Elisa Hospita from Anadolu Agency's Indonesian language service in Jakarta.