Customs-NAIA clears 839,870 doses of ‘Pfizer’ Vaccine

THE Bureau of Customs-NAIA (BOC-NAIA) expeditiously cleared two shipments of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in two different batches, consisting of 651,500 doses and 188,370 doses on September 1 and 2, 2021, respectively.

Another shipment of the same brand totaling 101,790 jabs was also cleared at the Cebu Mactan Airport last August 25, 2021 and September 1, 2021, respectively, the Port of Cebu said in a separate statement.

The first vaccine importation arrived at around 9:20 PM on September 1 at NAIA Terminal 3 via Flight No. LD457; it has already undergone advance clearance process on August 31 through the One-Stop-Shop of Customs NAIA to ensure its prompt release and delivery.

The arrival was welcomed by National Task Force (NTF) Vaccine Czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., DOH Supply Chain Management Service Director Dr. Ariel Valencia, and Chargé d’Affaires John C. Law from the US Embassy.

On September 2, 2021, an additional shipment of Pfizer vaccines totaling 188,370 doses also arrived at the NAIA via DHL Express Flight LD 456 at around 10:00PM.

Some of the vaccines were then transported to the Davao region thru the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) located in Davao City, NAIA district collector Carmelita ‘Mimel’ Talusan said in a brief statement.

To date, BOC has cleared 88 shipments of COVID-19 vaccines which arrived in the country from February 28, composed of eight (8) vaccine brands with more than 52 million total doses processed and released.

Of the total cleared vaccines, 29.5 million are Sinovac, 8.43 million are AstraZeneca, 5.84 million are Pfizer, 4.30 million are Moderna, 3.24 million are Johnson & Johnson, 1 million are Sinopharm, 380,000 are Sputnik V and 100,000 are Hayat-Vax vaccines.

Since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, the Bureau of Customs has also cleared 16,015 shipments of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) such as facemasks, face shields, test kits, and various medical equipment, of which 9,815 are released by BOC-NAIA accounting for 61.3 percent of the PPE cleared by the bureau.

For its part, the Cebu collection district, thru the Sub-port of Mactan, has thus far cleared 569,790 doses of Pfizer vaccines.