MANILA — As part of its global effort to help end COVID-19, the United States delivered an additional 1,842,750 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to the Philippines in collaboration with the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) facility.
The vaccines, which arrived in Manila in two separate shipments on October 10 and 11, were among the 500 million Pfizer doses made available for distribution through COVAX, a global initiative to support equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. This comes on the heels of Pfizer's delivery of 5.57 million doses of vaccine to the Philippines last week.
Heather Variava, Chargé d'Affaires ad interim (CDA) of the United States Embassy in the Philippines, joined National Task Force Against COVID-19 Chief Implementer Secretary Carlito Galvez, Jr., and other stakeholders at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport to welcome the arrival of a shipment of 924,300 doses on October 10. On October 11, another 918,450 doses were delivered.
"We're really proud to be a part of this effort here in the Philippines to vaccinate Filipinos, including teenagers and children, so we can get them back to school," said CDA Variava.
The United States, as the largest donor to the COVAX facility, has facilitated the delivery of more than 24.3 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to the Philippines via COVAX, including more than 16.4 million doses provided by the American people.
Throughout the pandemic, the US is collaborating closely with Philippine stakeholders to protect public health and support the local response to COVID-19. To date, the United States government's COVID-19 assistance to the Philippines totals more than Php1.9 billion ($39 million). —Tacloban News Update (Source: US Embassy in the Philippines/PRESS RELEASE)