A TOTAL of 3.2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from Johnson and Johnson (J&J) are set to arrive in the country on July 19, according to a top official from the Department of Health (DOH).
DOH Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said during the Laging Handa briefing that the 3.2 million doses of the J&J vaccine are a donation from the United States government through the global aid COVAX facility and will be used on senior citizens and persons with comorbidities.
“The directive from vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez is to use the J&J largely on senior citizens since that will be very convenient for senior citizens and those residing in far-flung areas,” Cabotaje said.
The J&J vaccine called Janssen is a single-dose vaccine, and would be the first of its kind to be received by the Philippine government.
As for the over three million doses of two-dose AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine which arrived last week, Cabotaje said that the one million doses donated by Japan will be allocated in NCR Plus 8, 1.5 million doses for the second dose, and the remaining 500,000 doses will be deployed nationwide.
Likewise, Cabotaje said that Galvez has ordered the direct deployment of COVID-19 vaccines to Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi provinces, which have porous borders and amid rising numbers of the more transmissible Delta variant cases in nearby Malaysia and Indonesia.
As of this posting, the Philippines has so far vaccinated 13 million individuals, of which 3.52 million are already fully vaccinated.
The Philippines aims to fully vaccinate 58 million individuals in highly urbanized areas to achieve population protection by the end of the year.