MANILA (UPDATED) — The Philippines on Thursday reported 1,392 newly-confirmed COVID-19 infections, pushing the total cases to 424,297 as the country ramps up plans to secure the vaccine against the deadly disease.

This is the third-straight day that the daily tally counted fewer than 1,500, according to ABS-CBN’s Investigative & Research Group, and the 17th straight day that new cases did not exceed 2,000.

Thursday's additional cases, however, do not include data from 9 accredited laboratories that failed to submit their data to the COVID-19 Data Repository System, according to the Department of Health (DOH).

Caloocan City led the areas in the country with the most number of new infections after logging 77 additional cases, followed by the provinces of Cavite and Laguna with 73 each, Davao City with 62, and the province of Quezon with 60.

The number of recovered patients increased to 387,266 as the DOH logged 328 more recoveries. The total recoveries account for 91.3 percent of the total recorded cases.

The DOH also logged 27 additional fatalities, bringing the death toll of the highly-contagious disease to 8,242.

A total of 28,789 or 6.8 percent of the total number of cases are considered active infections. The DOH said 92.3 percent of patients currently ill are asymptomatic or exhibiting mild symptoms, while 4.9 percent are critically ill.

Of the 24,558 people who were tested as of Wednesday noon, 1,367 or 5.6 percent were confirmed positive for the disease, data showed.

A total of 10 duplicates were removed from the total tally, according to the health department. Of these, 8 were tagged as recovered cases.

A total of 9 cases initially tagged as recoveries were also found to be deaths after validation.

PH to buy 2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine this week

The country’s vaccine czar Carlito Galvez earlier revealed that the country is expected to sign a deal on Friday for the purchase of a vaccine against COVID-19 from British pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca.

Officials and the private sector who donated funds for the vaccine will sign a tripartite deal for 2 million doses of the AstraZeneca drug.

Galvez had said it may take up to 5 years to finish the government’s vaccination drive against the novel coronavirus.

AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford have announced that their inexpensive, easy-to-produce coronavirus vaccine was either 62 percent or 90 percent effective, depending on the manner in which the doses were given.

• Philippines to sign deal to buy 2 million COVID-19 vaccine doses this week

Frontline health workers both in the public and private sectors, senior citizens, and poor Filipinos are among those prioritized to be inoculated with the vaccine once it becomes available, according to the DOH.

In a breakdown shared by DOH Bureau of International Health Cooperation’s Dr. Aleli Annie Sudiacal, the first part of the program proposes to cover some 24.7 million Filipinos.

Last week, President Rodrigo Duterte approved advance payment to private vaccine developers to ensure that the Philippines would get a supply of the drug. He was also set to authorize emergency use of COVID-19 vaccines, according to Malacañang.

• Avigan trial for COVID-19 patients begins in Philippines
• COVID-19 vaccination may take up to 5 years, 35M Pinoys on priority list: official

The total number of novel coronavirus cases globally surpassed the 60 million mark on Wednesday, as the United States continues to be gripped by a third wave of the virus, according to a tally by the Agence France-Presse (AFP).

AFP noted that many nations still "lack testing capacity, or test only symptomatic cases or the most serious ones."

• Coronavirus cases worldwide top 60 million: Agence tally

A running tally from the US-based Johns Hopkins University, meanwhile, showed that the US still topped the countries worldwide with the highest number of infections, with almost 12.8 cases to date.

The US is followed by India with almost 9.3 million cases, Brazil with almost 6.2 million, France with 2.2 million, and Russia, with 2.1 million infections.

Since the pandemic began, more than 1.4 million have died while almost 39 million have recovered from the disease.

- with report from Agence France-Presse

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