“This is so important for the kids of the Philippines so that they can go back to school, so they can enjoy sports, so they can enjoy cultural events, so that they can be normal kids again,” USAid Health Director Michelle Lang-Alli said in her message at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3.
“The USAid is very excited to continue supporting the vaccine rollout. We will now add pediatrics to our plan and continue to support the general rollout and also the vaccine for the kids,” Lang-Alli added.
The government kicked off the vaccination drive for children aged 5 to 11 on February 7, which aims to administer at least 15.56 million Covid-19 jabs.
National Task Force Against Covid-19 chief implementer and vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. thanked the American government and Pfizer-BioNTech for the timely delivery of the vaccines.
“This will be distributed to different regional areas. They are expecting and we would like to thank all the different LGUs and also the National Vaccination Operations Center for the successful launching of our pedia vaccination last Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday,” Galvez said.
“Now we are on the first day of our national vaccination days. We would like to thank everybody and encourage everybody to get vaccinated as soon as possible,” the vaccine czar added.
The country also received on the same night 3,436,290 doses of Pfizer vaccines donated by the United States government through the Covax facility.
Galvez was accompanied by Dr. Malalay Ahmadzai, chief of Health and Nutrition of Unicef Philippines, Department of Health Usec. Ma. Carolina Vidal-Taiño, and National Task Force special adviser Dr. Teodoro Herbosa.
With the latest shipments, the country has received a total of 222,449,820 Covid-19 vaccine doses since deliveries commenced in February 2021.
According to the National Vaccination Operations Center data, a total of 60,689,878 Filipinos nationwide have been fully vaccinated, as of 6 p.m. February 9.