DILG: LGUs may buy COVID-19 vaccines for those not in priority population
MANILA, Philippines — Local government units (LGUs) may purchase their own supply of coronavirus vaccines to inoculate their constituents who are not part of the priority population of the national government’s vaccination program.
According to Interior Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya, some LGUs have already allotted funds to procure COVID-19 vaccines.
“They can purchase COVID-19 vaccines approved by the Food and Drug Administration as augmentation,” Malaya said Saturday in a televised Laging Handa Public Briefing.
“Kumabaga kung gusto pa nila ng dagdag na constituents nila na hindi priority, puwede po silang bumili at i-vaccinate ang kanilang constituents,” he added.
Among the priorities of the government’s vaccination plan include medical frontliners, senior citizens, indigent Filipinos, and the uniformed personnel.
The government is banking on the vaccine of China’s Sinovac Biotech to be the first to reach the country with officials saying it may arrive in the first quarter of 2021.
The government has so far secured 2.6 million doses of vaccine from British drugmaker AstraZeneca, which are expected to arrive in the second quarter of 2021.
JE
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