PASIG CITY— National Task Force against COVID-19 Chief Implementer and Vaccine Czar, Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., announced that a total of 190,000 Sputnik V vaccines are to arrive in the country over the weekend or next week.
He said the latest batch of Sputnik V vaccines will be used for Filipinos who have long waited for their second dose.
To ease the concerns of those who have received their first Sputnik jab, Galvez cited vaccine experts from the Department of Health (DOH) who said the gap between the first and second doses of Sputnik V can be stretched to as long as six months.
Meanwhile, Galvez announced that the country expects to receive the first batch of government-procured Sputnik V Light vaccines of about 1 million doses this month.
He pointed out that the single-shot Sputnik V Light is deemed more efficient as government will be able to protect people faster and help solve the usual problem of people who failed to receive their second dose.
So far, the Philippines has received a total of 57,547,610 doses from different vaccine manufacturers, and over 36 million doses procured by the national government as of September 15.
He also announced that the country has already breached the 40-million mark with 40,030,388 COVID-19 jabs already administered.
This number consists of 17,675,959 fully vaccinated individuals and 22,354,429 Filipinos who have already received their first dose.
Around 39 million doses are expected to arrive this September, with 5,647,020 doses already delivered to the country from September 1 to 15.