Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin, Jr. (left) and United Kingdom Ambassador to the Philippines Daniel Pruce. (Photo by DFA-OPCD Philip Adrian Fernandez)
MANILA – Outgoing British Ambassador to the Philippines Daniel Pruce said 415,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine donated by the United Kingdom are set to arrive in Manila on August 2.
The announcement was made during his farewell call on Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Thursday.
"To support the Philippines’ vaccine rollout program, Ambassador Pruce informed the Secretary that the UK’s donation of 415,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines is tentatively scheduled to arrive in the country on Monday afternoon, 2 August 2021," the DFA said in a statement on Friday.
Britain this week will start deploying about nine million doses of vaccines to countries with "high levels of Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths."
The 415,000 doses allocated for the Philippines is part of the first tranche of 100 million vaccine doses Britain pledged to deploy across the world within the next year, with 30 million due to be distributed by end of 2021.
During the meeting, Locsin also thanked Pruce for his "dedicated service" in strengthening the Philippines-United Kingdom bilateral relations.
Aside from pandemic response, the two followed through on matters discussed during the recent phone call between Locsin and British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, including the enhanced bilateral partnership, police cooperation, and the UK’s bid to become a dialogue partner at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. (PNA)
