Philippines receives more Sinovac vaccines from China

Residents are inoculated with the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine inside an evacuation center in Batangas Province, the Philippines on July 5, 2021. (Xinhua/Rouelle Umali)

MANILA, July 29 (Xinhua) -- China delivered an additional batch of Sinovac CoronaVac vaccines to the Philippines on Thursday to support the Southeast Asian country's inoculation campaign against the COVID-19 pandemic.

China was the first to deliver coronavirus vaccines to the Philippines. It donated the first batch of CoronaVac to Manila on Feb. 28, allowing the country to kick off its vaccination drive on March 1. As of Thursday, China has been the biggest supplier of COVID-19 vaccines to the Philippines.

The Philippines has received over 31.3 million doses of different brands of vaccines so far.

The country has administered more than 18 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines as of July 27. More than 6.8 million people have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 so far. The government aims to vaccinate up to 70 million people this year.

The Philippines has reported a total of 1,566,667 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Wednesday, including 27,401 deaths.