BOC clears 4th Batch of ‘AstraZeneca’ vaccine
THE Bureau of Customs-NAIA (BOC-NAIA) cleared another batch of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, with 1,124,100 doses, aboard All Nippon airlines on July 08, 2021.
The vaccine donation from the Government of Japan, consigned to the Department of Health (DOH), arrived via Flight No. NH819 at Villamor Air Base in Pasay City at around 9:00 pm and was pre-cleared a day before, on July 07, 2021, at the COVID-19 One-Stop-Shop of BOC-NAIA.
The arrival was witnessed by Pres. Rodrigo Roa Duterte, together with officials from the Embassy of Japan to the Philippines, National Task Force (NTF) against COVID-19 and the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID).
It can be recalled that AstraZeneca was the second COVID-19 vaccine imported into the country, following the first COVID-19 vaccine arrival in the Philippines last February 28, 2021, which was donated by the People’s Republic of China.
NAIA district collector, Carmelita Talusan, in a statement, noted that the shipment is already the 4th batch of AstraZeneca vaccines that arrived in the country and the 26th batch of COVID-19 vaccines processed and cleared by the BOC. The shipment also increased to 3,680,100 the number of AstraZeneca vaccines cleared by the bureau.
Talusan further noted that for the first half of 2021, the BOC has already cleared 12 million doses of Sinovac, 2,478,060 doses of Pfizer, 249,600 doses of Moderna.
On the other hand, the number of ‘Sputnik V’ doses from Russia now totals 312,000 jabs with the arrival of 132,000 jabs last July 9, 2021.
Another shipment of 37,800 Sputnik V doses is expected to arrive this July 10, 2021, according to Sec. Carlito Galvez, also the country’s ‘vaccine czar.’
