MANILA, Philippines—A year after the pandemic landed on the country’s shores, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) already released a total of P568 billion to government agencies for programs and projects aiding in the fight against COVID-19, including P10 billion for mass vaccination.
The first batch of vaccines to arrive in the Philippines were 600,000 doses of CoronaVac, which was manufactured by the Chinese firm Sinovac and donated by China. Last March 4 and 7, at least 525,600 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines arrived courtesy of the Covax facility of World Health Organization.
The latest DBM data on Thursday (March 11) showed that the department released P386.1 billion in …
Keep on reading: DBM: P10B for vaccines already released to DOH in February