COVID vaccines flowing in
VARIOUS brands of COVID-19 vaccines are flowing into the country with the arrival of another shipment of 1.5 million doses of China-made Sinovac yesterday morning at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) on a Cebu Pacific flight from Beijing.
Another shipment of 554,200 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines procured by private sectors arrived at the NAIA around 9 a.m. on a China Airlines flight from Taipei.
The AstraZeneca vaccines were received by Presidential adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion.
The Saturday shipments of vaccines were inspected, cleared and released by the Bureau of Customs One Stop Shop (OSS) through advance documents presented by the DOH and the FDA representatives and immediately transported to PharmaServ Express cold storage in Marikina City by refrigerated vans.
The bureau has processed and released a total of 5,891,650 doses of COVID-19 vaccines that arrived Friday and Saturday July 16 and 17 composed of 3,240,850 doses of Johnson &Johnson’s vaccines donated by the United States to the Philippines through the COVAX facility in Belgium that arrived Friday and Saturday.
Cebu Pacific transported the 1.5 million Sinovac vaccine doses from Beijing in coordination with the DOH.
“This is Cebu Pacific’s second shipment this week and it is a good indication of the collaborative efforts between the government and private sector to fight COVID-19. We are grateful to Cebu Pacific and other carriers for their contribution in the safe and timely distribution of these vaccines,” said Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., chief implementer of the National Task Force Against COVID-19.
“We are always ready to be part of the government’s initiative to procure and distribute vaccines for the country,” said Alex Reyes, chief Strategy Officer at Cebu Pacific. “We are grateful for the trust and opportunity to keep on supporting this national endeavor.”
CEB had transported more than 500,000 Sinovac, Astrazeneca and Gamaleya Sputnik V vaccine doses to various provinces from Manila.
Since March 2021, CEB has flown over 11.5 million vaccine doses from China to Manila, and over 3 million doses to now 21 provinces, with Tawi-Tawi as the newest recipient.
