QUEZON CITY, (PIA) -- The Philippines received another tranche of AstraZeneca vaccines with a total of 2,028,000 doses from the COVAX facility led by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday afternoon at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3. 

Joining Vaccine Czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. in welcoming the arrival of the said batch were the Representative of WHO to the Philippines Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinghe, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Acting Mission Director Sean Callahan, and Representative Oyunsaikhan Dendevnorov of the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). 

To date, AstraZeneca is the second widely deployed vaccine in the country next to China-manufactured Sinovac with over 5 million supply arrival in tranches and by five batches so far according to the latest data of the National Task Force Against COVID-19 (NTF). 

The COVAX-donated AstraZeneca doses, on the other hand, brings the total number of delivered vaccines in the Philippines to its 20 million mark from the more than 18.5 million supply it has secured as of July 8. 

In view of the successive vaccine arrivals, the country is continuously being headed towards achieving population protection against COVID-19 by the end of the year as the number of administered inoculations among the priority groups of the national immunization program leaps to 12,703,081. Of which, 3,209,242 individuals are fully vaccinated as of July 8.

(PIA-NCR with report from intern Janna Pineda)