Manila, Philippines – The 193,050 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines procured by the Philippine government arrived in the country on Monday evening, May 10, 2021 at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 2 via Air Hongkong Airlines commercial flight.
These vaccines were developed by American corporation called Pfizer in New York (NY) and BioNtech, a German biotechnology company in Mainz, Germany.
LOOK: The first delivery of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccines arrives in NAIA 2.
193,050 doses from the COVAX facility will mainly be allocated for Metro Manila, Davao and Cebu, according to the Department of Health. @gmanews pic.twitter.com/o1Ibo3mYFZ
— Mav Gonzales (@mavgonzales) May 10, 2021
According to DOH, the Pfizer-BioNTech doses from COVAX facility will mainly be allocated for Metro Manila, Davao and Cebu areas.
“Inaasahan din natin na darating naman ngayon araw, May 10, ang nasa 193,000 doses ng unang batch ng bakuna mula po sa Pfizer,” Secretary Harry Roque said.
Sec. Roque added that the Pfizer-BioNTech doses from COVAX facility will mainly be allocated to a low temperature areas like Metro Manila, Davao and Cebu because the vaccines requires negative 20 degrees temperature.
According to Pfizer, the vaccine needs to stored in a ultra-low temperature freezers between -80ºC to -60ºCfor five days at refrigerated 2-8°C conditions.
Secretary Francisco Duque III said that the Philippines is expecting to receive 1.1 million doses of the Pfizer within this year. On the other hand, the government is also expecting to receive 500,000 vaccine doses of the Sinovac and another 2M doses of the Sputnik V within this year.
Last Saturday, May 8, the government received 2M AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines from the COVAX facility.
Here is the table showing the number of vaccines delivered in the country from February 2021 to present.
| Date | Name of Vaccines | Figure |
|---|---|---|
| Feb 28, 2021 | SinoVac | 600,000 |
| March 24, 2021 | SinoVac | 400,000 |
| March 29, 2021 | SinoVac | 1,000,000 |
| April 11, 2021 | SinoVac | 500,000 |
| April 19, 2021 | AstraZeneca | 525,600 |
| April 22, 2021 | SinoVac | 500,000 |
| April 29, 2021 | SinoVac | 500,000 |
| May 7, 2021 | SinoVac | 1,500,000 |
| May 8, 2021 | AstraZeneca | 2,000,000 |
| May 10, 2021 | Pfizer-BioNTech | 193,050 |
So far, the Philippine government has received a total of 7,733,650 doses of Covid-19 vaccines. Majority of the vaccines received by the government are SinoVac Vaccines with a total of 5M doses. These vaccines were developed by the Chinese drug-maker Sinovac BioNtech.
Source: ABS-CBN COVID-19 tracker
Since the vaccination rolled out by March 1, 2021, only 320,586 were fully vaccinated and 1,744,649 received their first dose. As of May 4, 2021, the Philippine government has administered a total of 2,065,235 doses so far. Meanwhile, the government has distributed a total of 3,970,680 doses of vaccines.
The government is also expecting to receive vaccines of Pfizer-BioTech, Sinovac vaccines and Sputnik V vaccines.
The target numbers of full vaccination by the end of the year are at least 70 million individuals.
See Also: Latest tally of the COVID-19 cases in the Philippines
Efficacy Rates of Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine
According to the official website of Pfizer, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was 100% effective against severe disease as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and 95.3% effective against severe COVID-19 as defined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Your Reactions
Do you have clarifications/ comments about this article? Please feel free to drop one below.