Manila, Jun 19 (IANS): The Philippines said it has surpassed its target of fully vaccinating over 70 million, or 77.78 per cent of its target population with the Covid-19 shots.

The National Vaccination Operations Centre announced that 70,005,247 Filipinos have received the two-dose vaccine, including more than 3.2 million children aged five to 11 and nearly 9.5 million minors aged 12 to 17, reports Xinhua news agency.

On saturday, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire urged people to get the booster shots to sustain their immunity amid a spike of new Covid cases across the country.

Vergeire said the country now tallies an average of 350 cases daily, 50 to 60 per cent higher than the previous week.

In Metro Manila, the daily average was 102 cases last week, but now it increased to around 170, she added.

"The number of cases is increasing, albeit slowly. We need to be cautious," she told a televised press conference, warning the cases could reach 800 to 1,200 per day by the end of June if the current number of cases continues to increase.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic in early 2020, the Philippines has reported 3,695,652 confirmed Cocid-19 cases, with 60,467 deaths.

The country reported the highest single-day tally on January 15 this year, with 39,004 new cases.