DAVAO Region’s Covid-19 vaccine allocation has reached more than 4.2 million doses after receiving a total of 1,136,070 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines for three consecutive days.
On Wednesday, October 6, 2021, a total of 994,500 doses of Pfizer vaccines donated by the United States Government through the Covax Facility arrived at the Francisco Bangoy International Airport (Davao International Airport) at 5:55 p.m. This is the largest shipment of vaccines in one day since the rollout began in the region last March 5.
The Department of Health-Davao Region (DOH) held a short virtual acceptance ceremony of the Pfizer vaccines.
Health Undersecretary Dr. Abdullah Dumama Jr. said during the event that the donated Covid-19 vaccines manifest global participation and cooperation in putting an end to this pandemic.
Dumama also appealed to the public, especially those on the priority list and are still hesitant, to have themselves vaccinated.
“Please take the vaccines now. You will be doing our country a great favor by improving the vaccine coverage, and helping achieve the herd immunity,” he said.
DOH-Davao Director Dr. Annabelle Yumang said vaccination is one of the key measures in winning this pandemic and that the availability of more and more vaccine doses will help reach the gap between demand and supply.
Michelle Lang-Alli, director of the Office of Health of the United States Agency for International Development (USAid), said the separate shipments of 994,500 doses arrived in Cebu and Davao, the areas in the country with high Covid-19 cases.
“The United States has worked closely with the Philippines stakeholders throughout the pandemic to protect public health in strengthening local responses to Covid-19,” Lang-Alli said.
She said the US has facilitated more than 21.4 million vaccines delivered to the Philippines via the Covax Facility, including more than 9 million that were directly donated by the American people.
Another 77,220 doses of Pfizer vaccines arrived on Wednesday morning (October 7), and 64,350 doses on Friday morning (October 8).
The region has already received a total of 2,970,630 doses of Pfizer vaccines from March 5, 2021 to October 8. Pfizer vaccines now is the highest number of doses received by Davao Region. It was followed by Sinovac with 1,387,760 Sinovac CoronaVac doses, 413,680 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines, 143,850 doses of Janssen Johnson & Johnson, 121,620 doses of Moderna, and 100,400 doses of Sinopharm vaccines.
