A fire that broke out over the weekend at a vaccine storage facility in the southern Philippines destroyed nearly 150,000 COVID-19 shots, media said Tuesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd November, 2021) A fire that broke out over the weekend at a vaccine storage facility in the southern Philippines destroyed nearly 150,000 COVID-19 shots, media said Tuesday.
The blaze hit a Pagadian City health center that doubled as cold chain storage for the entire Zamboanga del Sur province, the Philstar daily cited the coronavirus national task force as saying.
More than half of the doses compromised were produced by Pfizer and must be kept supercooled. Hundreds of more doses were made by China's Sinovac, US' Moderna and UK-Swedish firm AstraZeneca. The shots were intended for teens, who were cleared for vaccination last month.
An unknown number of polio, hepatitis and measles vaccines were also damaged.
The southeast Asian archipelago nation of more than 110 million is eight months into the COVID-19 vaccination campaign. Some 35% of the population have been fully immunized.
