Phl Gets AstraZeneca Vaccines Under COVAX

4.5 M more jabs arriving in May

- Christina Mendez And Rudy Santos

President Duterte personally welcomed last night the arrival of the first batch of AstraZeneca vaccines, thanking the international community for the COVAX Facility that made the donation possible.

“We might not be out of the woods yet, but we are making progress,” Duterte said in a ceremony last night to welcome the 487,200 doses of AstraZeneca, which were shipped from the plant in Belgium on a KLM flight with a stopover in Bangkok, Thailand. “The end is in sight.”

He urged Filipinos to “be a government partner” and “to get vaccinated at the soonest possible time” while maintaining COVID safety protocols.

With the President to welcome the arrival of the vaccines was Rabindra Abeyasinghe, country representative of the World Health Organization, which initiated the COVAX Facility in April 2020 together with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the European Commission and France.

Saying “none of us is safe until all of us are safe,” Abeyasinghe said 4.5 million more AstraZeneca doses would be arriving through May, and the COVAX Facility would account for the vaccination of 20 percent of the Philippine population within the year.

After his prepared speech, Duterte expressed “the gratitude in our hearts” to the countries behind the COVAX Facility, whose ambassadors attended the ceremony.

“I don’t know how to express my gratitude to the donor countries. That you remembered the poor nations is in fact already a plus for humanity… May God bless you for your benevolence,” Duterte said as he reiterated that COVID vaccines “should be treated as a global public good.”