Malacañang on Sunday assured the 1.4 million medical frontliners that they will all receive their COVID-19 vaccines until March as the first batch of the drugs is expected to arrive within this month.

In a radio interview, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said the 117,000 doses from US pharmaceutical company Pfizer BioNTech from COVAX Facility will benefit 50,000 health workers.

“The next arrival from AstraZeneca will be around five million (doses). So we expect that all first batch of frontliners, who are around 1.4 million, they will receive the vaccine because around five million (doses of) AstraZeneca will arrive also within the month,” Roque said.

“So we expect that for the entire week, entire next month, at least all medical frontliners and those who are immediate priority will start (getting the shots). But definitely, it will not take a month to finish (the inoculation of) all our medical frontliners,” he added.

Roque said the government has already the list of names of those medical personnel who will be injected.

He said the state-run Philippine General Hospital (PGH) will be the first hospital that will get the Pfizer vaccine.

“They submitted 5,000 names,” Roque said.

The Pfizer vaccine is expected to arrive in the country within the month. Ella Dionisio/DMS