Philippines plans jabs for teenagers and faster vaccination rate

MANILA, June 20 (Bloomberg): The Philippines plans to speed up Covid-19 vaccinations and start inoculating its youth later this year after signing its biggest supply deal yet with Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, the government’s vaccine czar Carlito Galvez said.

The 40 million doses from Pfizer-BioNTech are expected to begin arriving from August and take the country’s total supply to 157 million, Galvez said in a statement on Sunday. That adds to deals for 26 million doses from Sinovac Biotech Ltd., 20 million from Moderna Inc., 17 million from AstraZeneca Plc. and 10 million from an agreement with Russia for Sputnik V, he said.