As a continuation of bilateral donations, Japan said on Tuesday that they will be sending millions of AstraZeneca vaccines to neighboring Asian nations including the Philippines.
Japan will be sending 1 million each to Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam this week.
“Glad to be the bearer of good news today. Japan will donate AstraZeneca vaccines to the Philippines, and we’ll make sure to deliver them at the soonest possible time so no one gets left behind this pandemic,” Japanese Ambassador Koshikawa Kazuhiko said.
Japan has pledged $1 billion and 30 million doses to the global vaccine sharing scheme COVAX.
The Philippines has received over 12 million various brands of vaccines from the Covax facility since February this year. Such brands include Sinovac from China, Sputnik from the Russian Federation, AstraZeneca, and Pfizer BioNTech.
In March earlier this year, Japan started manufacturing AstraZeneca vaccines through Japanese drugmaker Daiichi Sankyo Co.after signing an outsourcing agreement with the British Pharmaceutical company. However, Japan does not intend to use these vaccines immediately in public inoculation due to the alleged rare cases of blood clots as a side effect that occured in Europe.
Reference: Japan to ship millions more COVID-19 vaccines to Taiwan, Asian neighbours this week (msn.com)
