The government also expanded to ages 12 to 15 the approval earlier given to Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE’s Covid-19 vaccine, the health department said today.

The younger population may be inoculated once supply stabilises, with the vulnerable still priority, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a separate statement.

Sinopharm was approved for emergency use so the government can receive the state-owned company’s vaccine donations, Food and Drug Administration head Eric Domingo said yesterday evening at a weekly briefing.

The Philippines has inoculated about 6 million, of which 1.5 million have received their second dose, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez said.

The nation has received 9.3 million doses of vaccines and is expecting 11 million to arrive this month including 4.5 million from Sinovac Biotech Ltd, 2.28 million from Pfizer and 2 million from AstraZeneca Plc through the Covax facility and 250,000 from Moderna Inc, Galvez said.

More than 5 million doses could come in July and as much as 17 million in August, he said.

The Philippines has started vaccinating about 35 million workers and is monitoring how other countries will inoculate their young population as guidance for about 29 million Filipinos in that age group, according to Galvez.

The economy, which suffered a record contraction in 2020 after implementing one of the world’s longest lockdowns, is counting on vaccines to aid its rebound.

It had to revert to the strictest movement curbs for 2 weeks starting late March as infections rose.

President Rodrigo Duterte, at the briefing yesterday, urged Filipinos to make sure they’re taking the second dose of the vaccines after a data showed that about half of those who had their first shot didn’t come back for the second one.

Galvez, however said that based on government records, only 113,000 people have so far missed their second jab.