MANILA – On Wednesday, the Philippines received 700,000 doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine donated by the Australian Government.
"Probably in the first quarter of next year, there will be additional doses to take up to 2.2 million doses and 1.4 million doses on top of that through UNICEF", Australian Ambassador Steven Robinson said.
Vaccine czar Secratary Carlito Galvez, said most of the vaccine will be used in the three - day National COVID-19 vaccination drive starting November 29 as the first dose, second dose, or booster shots.
He clarified that booster vaccinations of health workers, senior citizens, and immunocompromised individuals will still push through that day.
"What we recommend to LGUs, we decided a separate vaccination site for children's vaccination, one vaccination site for booster, and one vaccination site for the usaual general population vaccination," Galvez said.
"Para hindi magkamali, iilan lang ang allowed na vaccine for children - Pfizer and Moderna. 'Yung booster, para 'yung accounting natin, it's very easy to segregate," he added.
Added by the Health Secretary Francisco Doque III, Australian's COVID-19 vaccine donation will greatly help the country supplement and add to its vaccine supply, not that booster vaccinations of certain sector have started.
Around 135 million COVID-19 vaccine dose have arrived in the Philippines, with 77.5 million out of these already administered, of the target 77 million Filipinos for vaccination, almost 34.2 million have been fully vaccinated, while 43.3 million have been vaccinated with their first dose.
Around 70,000 have been vaccinated with booster shots.
"This is substantial in the light of the fact that we are rolling out our booster policy and were very happy, we're very gratified with the support that's being provided to us by our neighbors in Australia," Duque said.
"This is going to be distributed all over the country, but there will be priorities. The highly-density cities where economic activity is huge, we are pushing for more aggressive vaccine coverage in those areas, but no one is to left behind," he added.
Source: ABS-CBN News
Photo courtesy: Manila Bulletin
By: Jessica Carpina
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