THE head of the government’s COVID-19 response team said the country is on target to hit the 100 million COVID-19 vaccine arrivals by this week.
National Task Force Against COVID-19 chief implementer and vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez, Jr. said more than 26.3 million doses have been added to the national inventory this October.
As of October 25, the number of vaccines that have arrived in the country since February has already reached 97,678,340 doses, where more than 77.99 million doses have been deployed to local government units (LGUs), while 56.25 million doses have already been administered nationwide.
“This week, kailangan na lang natin is 2.3 million. At more or less, mga siguro po sa Wednesday or Thursday, darating na po ‘yung mga vaccines sa COVAX at saka po ‘yung mga donation,” Galvez said during the Talk to the People address of President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday.
Galvez said that these additional vaccines would enable the country to fully vaccinate at least 50 million individuals before the end of the year.
Apart from the procured doses, vaccine donations from partner countries such as the United States, China, Japan, and Germany are expected to increase within this quarter.
“Naka-gain ng traction po ‘yung ating political relations with other countries. Kung titingnan po natin, ang COVAX po at saka donation po ng other countries ay umabot na po ng halos 30 million po,” Galvez said.
Of the 97.67 million vaccine doses that have been delivered to the country, 24.33 million doses were donated through the COVAX facility, while 4.64 million were donations from bilateral partners.
Meanwhile, 60.72 million doses were procured by the national government and 7.98 million doses were purchased by LGUs and the private sector.
Galvez said the country still has more than 41.96 million doses in national warehouses and are ready to be deployed to various implementing units.
He said that directives have already been given, through the Department of Interior and Local Government as well as the Department of Health, to local chief executives of cities and provinces to accelerate their respective vaccination programs in order to hit and sustain the 1.5 million doses daily jab rate this quarter.
As of October 25, there are now 25,955,669 fully vaccinated individuals in the country, which is about 33.65 percent of the country’s target population.