When it rains, it pours as 562,770 doses of Pfizer- BioNtech Covid-19 vaccine arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) at 8 p.m. Wednesday, July 21, 2021, on board a Hong Kong Air DHL flight.
This was followed by the arrival of 1.5 million doses of Sinovac vaccine, airlifted by Cebu Pacific (CEB) from Beijing at 7:49 a.m. yesterday, July 22, 2021.
Today, July 23, Friday, Cebu Pacific flight CEB 5J 671 will airlift 1 million doses of Sinovac vaccine at about 8 a.m. from Beijing. The government reportedly secured the supply agreement with the US drugmaker last month with a total of 40 million Pfizer doses to the Philippines.
“Thank you America,” Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr., tweeted, as Palace spokesman Harry Roque confirmed the arrival of the US-made Pfizer vaccine at the airport.
“We are grateful to Cebu Pacific [CEB] and other carriers for their continuous support in the safe delivery of these vaccines. With this steady supply coming in, we can truly accelerate our vaccination program,” said Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., chief implementer of the National Task Force Against Covid-19.
The vaccines were subjected to special handling, stored in temperature-controlled refrigerated containers, and were inspected by airport authorities prior to transfer to cold storage vans and facilities.
“We are keen in supporting the government’s health and safety initiatives,” said Alex Reyes, chief strategy officer of CEC. “We are glad to keep on transporting essential cargo and Covid vaccines to the country and provinces within the airline’s reach.”
Over the week, CEB has also delivered around 640,000 Sinovac, AstraZeneca, Gamaleya Sputnik V and Johnson and Johnson vaccine doses to various provinces from Manila.
To date, CEB has carried over 13 million Covid-19 vaccine doses from China to Manila, and over 3.8 million doses to 21 provinces.
CEB operates the widest domestic network in the Philippines, covering 30 destinations, on top of its five international destinations. Its 74-strong fleet, one of the youngest in the world, includes two dedicated ATR freighters and an A330 freighter.
Galvez also reminded local government units (LGUs) to ensure that Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines “must be stored properly so it won’t go to waste.”
“We want to remind our LGUs to guarantee that their respective storage facilities have the right temperature for Pfizer vaccines,” Galvez said, adding that Pfizer vaccines need storage temperatures of between minus 70 to minus 80 degrees Celsius.
Galvez said the national government is trying to avoid a repeat of the Muntinlupa incident where an undisclosed number of Covid-19 vaccines were discarded due to storage temperature issues. Because of this, Muntinlupa won’t receive a share from the latest doses of Pfizer vaccines that arrived Wednesday.
“That’s really what we wanted also, to teach some lessons to LGUs that we must never neglect the proper handling of Covid-19 vaccines,” Galvez said.
Out of the 562,770 doses, 51,480 doses were shipped to Cebu and Davao, while the rest were immediately brought to a cold chain storage facility in Marikina prior to distribution to various parts of the country.
On Thursday, PharmaServ was scheduled to deliver Janssen doses to Laguna and Sinovac jabs to other parts of the province, such as Biñan, Cabuyao, Calamba, San Pablo, San Pedro and Sta. Rosa.
The cold-chain firm was set to deliver Sinovac doses to Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas, Valenzuela, Manila, Quezon City and Paranaque.
Today, Friday, PharmaServ will deliver Sinovac doses to Las Pinas, Malay in Aklan, Zamboanga, Soccsargen and Basilan.