MANILA - The Philippines on Friday welcomed 1.5 million more doses of the COVID-19 vaccine that it purchased from Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac.

The delivery, on board a Cebu Pacific flight from Beijing, arrived at 7:59 a.m. at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 2 in Pasay City.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III and vaccine czar Sec. Carlito Galvez Jr. were at the airport to receive the vaccine package.

“This large shipment of COVID vaccines with Cebu Pacific brings us closer to our goal of protecting every Filipino as fast as possible,” said Galvez, chief implementer of the National Task Force against COVID-19.

“We are grateful to Cebu Pacific for joining forces with the government to support us in ensuring the success of this vaccine roll-out," he added.

The doses will then be transported to a refrigerated storage in Marikina.

Including Friday's batch, there are now 5 million Sinovac CoronaVac vaccines that have arrived in the country, based on government numbers shown in ABS-CBN News' vaccine tracker.

• Philippines: COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker

Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian earlier said 2 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine are set to arrive in the country this month.

CoronaVac has been administered mainly to the country’s health workers, and recently, was allowed for use on senior citizens.

Other vaccine brands that have been delivered to the Philippines are those of AstraZeneca and Gamaleya Institute.

At least 2 million COVID-19 shots have been administered so far, of which, 1.7 million were first doses and 320,586 were second doses, a health official said on Wednesday.

The Philippines' has confirmed a total of 1,080,172 on Thursday, of which 63,170 or 5.8 percent are active.

The Philippine government aims to inoculate up to 70 million this year to achieve herd immunity against the coronavirus.

— With a report from Lyza Aquino, ABS-CBN News