MANILA — The Philippines is set to receive 193,000 COVID-19 shots from Pfizer-BioNTech on Monday, the first batch of jabs from the brand, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III confirmed Saturday.

Duque said that Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccines will be distributed to major cities that can handle its required storage temperature of -70 degrees Celsius.

He did not clarify, though, whether these are Pfizer's doses from vaccine-sharing platform COVAX expected this May.

The lack of an indemnity deal, which settles who will shoulder the cost of adverse effects from the vaccine, had delayed the arrival of the first Pfizer batch initially expected in mid-February.

Earlier in the day, the country received 2 million COVID-19 shots developed by Britain's Oxford-AstraZeneca through COVAX

Among the worst hit by the pandemic in Asia, the Philippines aims to vaccinate 70 million people or about two-thirds of its population this year.

More details to follow.

• READ: 2 million AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines arrive in PH through COVAX

— Bianca Dava, ABS-CBN News

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