OVER 600,000 doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine procured by the private sector arrived on Friday.

National Task Force Against Covid-19 (NTF) Chief Implementer Carlito Galvez Jr. and Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Jose Maria “Joey” Concepcion 3rd welcomed the shipment of 661,200 doses at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport .

Galvez, who is the national vaccine czar, said 80 percent of the new batch will be distributed to local government units under a tripartite agreement among the national government, the private sector and the vaccine manufacturer. The remaining 20 percent will be allocated to the private corporations and entities.

Concepcion said the continuous delivery of Covid-19 shots will help fast-track the government’s vaccine rollout.

“Malaking bagay ‘yan kasi kailangan buksan na natin ang ekonomiya [ .... ] Maski may breakthrough infections, ‘yung mga bakunado, hindi pumupunta sa ospital (This will greatly help us, especially since we need to reopen our economy. Even if there are breakthrough infections, fully vaccinated people don’t need to be hospitalized),” he said.

Galvez also said the first batch of the single-dose Sputnik Light vaccine will be delivered to the Philippines this September.

The shipment of 1 million shots manufactured by Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute was procured by NTF.

“The Sputnik Light is more efficient because we will be able to protect more people faster,” Galvez said, noting that it will do away with the problem of people failing to return for their second dose.

Sputnik Light is the second singledose vaccine to be given emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration, after Johnson & Johnson’s Jannsen.

Galvez said 190,000 doses of Sputnik V, the two-shot vaccine of Gamaleya, will arrive by “this weekend or early next week.”

The shots are reserved for individuals who have not received their second dose due to delivery delays.

Galvez said the gap between first and second doses of Sputnik V can be as long as six months.

The Philippines has received more than 58.2 million shots of various vaccine brands. More than 40 million shots have been administered.

Almost 18 million have been fully vaccinated, while over 22 million have received their first dose as of September 16.

Over 39 million more doses are expected to arrive this month, and an initial 5,647,020 doses have been delivered.