PH among recipients of free jabs from Google

MANILA – Google.org, the charitable arm of tech giant Google, is funding vaccines for 250,000 people in several countries, including the Philippines, through Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is a public-private partnership that works with the COVAX facility and the World Health Organization to ensure equitable vaccine access globally.

Other beneficiaries include Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, India, and Laos.

“The presence of vaccines gives us hope that we may be nearing the end of the pandemic but barriers to equitable access exist especially in low- and middle-income countries. We hope that through Google’s efforts and partnership with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, we can help more people from countries in need to be vaccinated,” Google Philippines Country Director Bernadette Nacario said in a statement on Wednesday.

Nacario added Google will be leading an employee-giving campaign to secure more vaccine shots, with the Gavi Matching Fund and Google.org matching the donation to triple the impact.

Google, along with other technology companies in the country, has partnered with the Department of Health’s fight against vaccine misinformation, alongside taking down harmful and misleading content.

In mid-April, it launched a dedicated search results page for quick and easy access to credible and timely information on vaccines from trusted news sources and health authorities.

Reliable information on vaccination updates, news, links to global and local health authorities, and health information among others will be suggested when people type in relevant keywords such as “Covid-19 vaccines”.

The Philippines has so far administered 1,809,801 doses of Covid-19 vaccines as of the April 27, 2021 data.