MANILA - The Philippines aims to vaccinate some 250,000 to 300,000 citizens against COVID-19 every day when the bulk of its vaccine supply arrives this year, an official said Wednesday.

The country began its immunization last week following the arrival of donated vaccines from Chinese drugmaker Sinovac and global alliance COVAX Facility.

• Philippines begins COVID-19 vaccination drive

Government earlier said it aims to inoculate 50 to 70 million adults, or two-thirds of the country's 108 million people this year to achieve herd immunity.

"We have a goal of inoculating of about 50 million Filipinos this year. To achieve that target we need to, for the remainder of the year, especially when the bulk of the vaccine comes in, give roughly about 250,000 to 300,000 per day," Secretary Vince Dizon told ANC's Headstart.

"In the initial stages it will be really difficult to measure this and have a steady state of inoculations per day simply because our supplies are just trickling in at the moment."

The Philippines has so far received more than 1.1 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines for its health workers. Of this figure, 600,000 were CoronaVac jabs and 500,000 doses were from AstraZeneca.