The government is targeting to vaccinate up to 250,000 individuals per day once the bulk of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines are already delivered in the Philippines, an official of the Department of Health (DOH) said on Thursday, March 11.
(Ali Vicoy / MANILA BULLETIN)
DOH Undersecretary Leopoldo Vega said that it was their target since the government intended to inoculate 50 to 70 million Filipinos against the viral illness by year-end.
“Once we have (more) supply coming in, for the general population, for the senior citizens, the uniformed personnel and everybody–I think we must be able to scale up for vaccination to about 200,000 to 250,000 per day,” said Vega in an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel.
“It’s a tall order but it’s a goal. We should have a goal. The goal really is we should hit 200,000 to 250,000 per day to reach that kind of expected output before the end of the year,” he added.
The local government units will be playing a vital role in achieving this target, said Vega.
“I think this is where the local government (units) really can help us out because they would have the vaccination centers and areas where they can actually make sure that all of their constituents will have the necessary vaccines,” he said.
Currently, “almost 13 percent of the healthcare workers” in the country were already vaccinated, said the DOH official.
“Still far, but given another few weeks, I think we will be able to reach 50 percent,” said Vega.
On March 8, DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said there are “1.8 million estimated healthcare workers from the hospitals down to the community across the different regions of the country.” So far, the Philippines has secured 600,000 doses of Sinovac vaccines and 525,600 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines. The country started its vaccination rollout last March 1.
“At this point, in terms of the COVID phase that we are in, I would look at it as a race between inoculation and infection. In other words, we now see the light at the end of the tunnel,” said Vega.
“But the tunnel is too dark, too winding and it is hard but we must be able to win the race of getting more people vaccinated so that the infection/ transmission will really go down. And this is the only way at this point aside from adherence and enforcement of the minimum health standards,” he added.
Dr. Rontgene Solante, chief of the Adult Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine unit of San Lazaro Hospital, expressed hope that more COVID-19 vaccines will be shipped to the Philippines soon.
“Actually, kung gugustuhin natin na marami ang mabakunahan as quickly and faster as possible, pero hindi natin magagawa iyan dahil sa limitations ng supply (Actually,we wanted to have many people to be vaccinated as quickly and faster as possible, but we can’t do that because of supply limitations),” said Solante in an interview over ABS-CBN Teleradyo.
“Hopefully, the vaccines will be coming in. Every time na may news na may bagong bakuna na parating, talagang natutuwa tayo dito, dahil ito naman talaga yung gusto natin mangyari na this year: maraming mabakunahan, mas maraming mag-develop ng immunity, and hopefully this will be the beginning of the pagkonti ng mga kaso (Hopefully, the vaccines will be coming in. Every time there is news that a new vaccine is coming, we are really excited about it, because this is exactly what we want to happen this year: that more people will be vaccinated, more people will develop immunity, and hopefully this will be the beginning of the decline of (COVID) cases),” he added.
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