The National Task Force (NTF) against Covid-19 will be allocating United States (US)-made Pfizer BioNTech coronavirus jabs to more areas nationwide with an increase of shipments set to arrive until year-end.
In a statement Thursday, NTF chief implementer Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. said the government expects the deliveries of about 10 million Pfizer vaccine doses spread for the months of October, November, and December this year.
He said those areas with a surge of cases will surely get an allocation of the American-made vaccine.
Galvez said the local government units (LGUs) should hold simulations on vaccine deployment, handling, and administration of highly sensitive jabs such as Pfizer, Moderna, and Sputnik V or Sputnik Light.
“We wanted all municipalities to have that sort of dry run so that when the majority of the Pfizer vaccines will come by October, more or less 10 million will be delivered each month during October, November, and December, they are already knowledgeable on how to handle critical supplies like the vaccines of Pfizer,” he said.
Galvez said the over a million doses of Pfizer are slated to arrive this month which is part of 40 million doses initially procured by the government from the American drug manufacturer.
The government is still on track of achieving its goal of population protection against Covid-19 by year-end, he said.
It targets to vaccinate 70 percent or 77,139,058 Filipinos out of the country’s 110,198,654 population.
The Philippines presently has a total of 52,603,760 doses of Covid-19 vaccines in its stockpile.
Source: Philippines News Agency