Makati Medical Center, Makati City — A ceremonial vaccination of medical frontliners was held here on Thursday, May 13, as the government proceeded with the rollout of COVAX-donated Pfizer vaccines.
Speaking at the event, National Task Force against COVID-19 Chief Implementer and vaccine czar Secretary Carlito G. Galvez, Jr. underscored the timeliness and importance of the arrival of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines in the country.
“The arrival of these vaccines comes at a crucial time when the government is accelerating the implementation of our National Vaccination Program so that we can inoculate a larger segment of our population,” Galvez said
The initial 193,050 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines from the COVAX facility, which arrived in the country on May 10, will be distributed initially to LGUs in Metro Manila, Davao City, and Cebu City and other major cities that can handle the vaccine’s temperature storage requirement of -70 °C.
He noted that the country now has four vaccine brands in its supply inventory, which include Sinovac, Gamaleya, Astrazeneca, and Pfizer, saying “This is concrete proof that the government’s strategy of developing a vaccine portfolio is paying dividends.”
According to the vaccine czar, over two million Filipinos belonging to A1, A2, A3 and A4 priority sectors have been inoculated nationwide. A total of 6.4 million vaccine doses have been deployed across 3,446 vaccination sites across the country.
“With the steady arrival of the vaccines, we expect to receive 7,753,450 doses in May and 10,050,000 in June, which will bring our total vaccine supply to 21,829,050. We expect this number to significantly increase in the coming months,” Galvez said.
A similar ceremonial vaccination for health care workers was also held at the Lakeshore Hub in Taguig City.
Also present during the event was Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID) Chair Health Secretary and Francisco Duque III.
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