1M Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines arrived in Philippines

Manila, Philippines – The 1 Million doses of Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines procured by the Philippine government arrived in the country on Sunday, June 06, 2021. These vaccines were developed by the Chinese drug-maker Sinovac Biotech.

The said shipment landed at Ninoy Aquino International Airport Sunday around 7:35 am.

Also present in receiving of the package is the Secretary of the Department of Health (DOH) Francisco Duque III and Vaccine czar and National Task Force against coronavirus disease 2019 Chief implementer Carlito Galvez Jr.

Chief implementer Carlito Galvez Jr. earlier said the government expects 10 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines to be delivered this month, including 4.5 million of Sinovac vaccines, 2.2 million Pfizer vaccines, 2 million AstraZeneca vaccines, 1 million Sputnik vaccines and 250,000 Moderna vaccines.

According also to Galvez, the country is expected to received 2.2M Pfizer vaccines that will arrived from June 10 to 11 and another 1 million of Sinovac vaccines are expected to be delivered on June 10.

Philippine Ambassador to China Chito Sta. Romana announced that the government are expecting to received more doses of Sinovac vaccines.

The country has received a total of 6.5 million doses of SinoVac COVID-19 vaccines from which 1 million doses were donated by the Chinese government.

So far, the government has received a total of 9,329,050 Covid-19 doses of vaccines as of June 6, 2021.

Here is the table showing the number of vaccines delivered in the country from February 2021 to present.

DateName of VaccinesFigure
Feb 28, 2021SinoVac600,000
March 24, 2021SinoVac400,000
March 29, 2021SinoVac1,000,000
April 11, 2021SinoVac500,000
April 19, 2021AstraZeneca525,600
April 22, 2021SinoVac500,000
April 29, 2021SinoVac500,000
May 1, 2021Gamaleya30,000
May 7, 2021SinoVac1,500,000
May 8, 2021AstraZeneca2,000,000
May 10, 2021Pfizer-BioNTech193,050
May 19, 2021SinoVac500,000
May 30, 2021Sputnik V50,000
June 6, 2021Sinovac1,000,000

The Philippine government has distributed at least 8,108,290 doses of COVID vaccines as of May 30, 2021. Each person need 2 doses of COVID-19 vaccine.

Since the vaccination rolled out by March 1, 1,544,332 were fully vaccinated and 4,421,319 received their first dose of vaccine. As of June 6, 2021, the Philippine government has administered a total of 5,965,651 doses of vaccines.

The government also assures that the vaccines is free for all its people.

The government is also expecting to receive AstraZeneca vaccines from World Health Organization (WHO) and from Pfizer-BioNTech within this year.

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

DOH: Vaccination Priorities

The government approved the vaccination for economic frontline workers in essential sectors (A4) and indigent Filipinos (A5) beginning of June. So far, only health workers, senior citizens and persons with comorbidities have undergone the vaccination program. Here are the following categories in vaccination program.

CategoryPriority group
A1Frontline health workers both national and local; public and non-public; health professional and non-professional (students, nursing aides, janitors, barangay health workers, et. al)
A2Senior citizens (60-years old and above)
A3Persons with comorbidities
A4Economic frontline workers in essential sectors including uniformed personnel.
A5Indigent Filipinos
B1Teachers and Social workers
B2Other Government Workers
B3Other Essential Workers such as grocery store workers, bank workers, retail workers, mall workers
B4Socio-demographic groups at significantly higher risk other than senior citizens and indigenous Filipinos such as persons deprived of liberty, persons with disabilities, Filipinos living in high-density areas, students
B5Overseas FIlipino Workers
B6Other remaining workforce
CRest of the Filipino population not otherwise included in the above priority groups

Efficacy Rates of SinoVac Vaccine

Based on the evaluation of SinoVac vaccines by the Philippine Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the efficacy rates are from 65.3% to 91.2% to aged 18-59 healthy individuals. 50.4% efficacy to those exposed in Covid-19 and 51% to 52% efficacy rates on senior citizens (60 above).

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