Monday, the Philippines approved Sinovac Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, announced the chief of the food and drugs agency Rolando Enrique Domingo.

Domingo said “After a thorough and rigorous review of the currently available published and unpublished data by our regulatory and medical experts, the FDA is granting an emergency use authorization to the COVID-19 vaccine of Sinovac Life Science Company.” 

Sinovac is the third vaccine to be granted emergency approval in the Philippines after the Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccines.

Philippines has confirmed a total of 563,456 coronavirus cases and 12,094 deaths since the start of the pandemic.