MANILA – The Japanese Embassy in Manila announced on Tuesday that the Philippines will get 1 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine developed in Japan as part of a government-to-government donation.
“We are working double time so these vaccines reach Philippine shores without delay. We hope this donation would help make the Philippines one step closer to its goal of herd immunity,” the Embassy said.
The shipment will arrive in Manila “tentatively on July 8,” according to Japanese Ambassador to the Philippines Koshikawa Kazuhiko.
On June 29, Embassy Chargé d’affaires ad interim Nakata Masahiro and Foreign Affairs Assistant Secretary Nathaniel Garcia Imperial signed and exchanged notes to finalize the donation.
The Embassy stated that this action was taken in response to a request from the Philippine government and will be “outside of the COVAX arrangement”.
“After the necessary arrangement to donate via COVAX is done, we will seek for donation via COVAX. However, until then, we seek for a government-to-government arrangement like as this time. That’s because we need prompt response to the situation of short supply of vaccines and the current serious situation of Covid-19,” according to them.
Japan is one of the four countries that are directly donating Covid-19 vaccines to the Philippines. China, the United States, and Australia are the other three.
