The Philippines received on Sunday its first batch of Covid-19 vaccine doses in a shipment donated by China, a day before it was due to roll out a national inoculation campaign, Reuters reports.

President Rodrigo Duterte attended a ceremony to mark the arrival of the initial 600,000 doses of Sinovac Biotech’s CoronaVac, which were delivered by a Chinese military aircraft. The Philippines is due to receive another 25 million doses of CoronaVac in batches this year.

The Philippines’ vaccination campaign will begin by targeting health care workers and police and military personnel.

“With this very important shipment, I am confident that more batches of vaccines will be available with great dispatch until every Filipino will be given the chance to be vaccinated at the earliest possible opportunity,” Duterte said in a speech at the Villamor Air Base.

He thanked China for the “gesture of friendship and solidarity — the hallmark of Philippines-China partnership.”