A healthcare worker raises a COVID-19 vaccine before administering it to a doctor during the rollout for private hospitals in Metro Cebu on March 9, 2021. CDN Digital Photo | Morexette Marie B. Erram
CEBU CITY, Philippines – More than 2,000 healthcare workers in Central Visayas have already received their first dose of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine since the rollout began last week.
A total of 2,341 medical frontliners from Cebu and Bohol were already administered with CoronaVac, Sinovac’s COVID-19 vaccine brand, said Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, spokesperson of the Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH-7).
Accounting for around 81 percent of these figures is personnel from Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) in Cebu City, the largest COVID-referral hospital in the region.
The others came from Governor Celestino Gallares Memorial Hospital in Bohol with 277, and Chong Hua Hospital in Cebu City with 160.
Hospital workers from VSMMC were the first recipients of CoronaVac. A ceremonial rollout was held last March 4, two days after they received the 7,200 vials from the national government.
Other hospitals in the region, including privately owned ones, followed suit this week when the second batch of CoronaVac, totaling more than 17,000 vials, arrived in Central Visayas last March 5.
Loreche also said they were glad to see the increasing numbers of healthcare workers who want to volunteer in the national government’s inoculation drive.
“As of March 9, a total of 2,673 hospital workers from Sotto (VSMMC) alone signified their willingness to be vaccinated. And we’re expecting these figures to rise as we start rolling out the vaccines in our private hospitals today (March 9),” said Loreche.
“We’re almost there in terms of compliance, acceptance, and confidence in receiving the COVID-19 vaccines, especially Sinovac,” she added.
Mild reaction
On March 9, simultaneous vaccination campaigns among private hospitals in Metro Cebu started, in which health officials expected around 7,000 healthcare workers to get inoculated.
On the other hand, Loreche disclosed that, as of March 9, they have recorded a total of 52 healthcare workers from VSMMC who reported experiencing adverse reactions after receiving Sinovac.
Fortunately, the DOH-7 official said none of them were rushed for further treatment or intervention as they tagged these cases as ‘mild reactions’.
Central Visayas needed an estimated 60,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines if it meant having all healthcare workers here inoculated.
An additional 20,000 doses from British drugmaker AstraZeneca are expected in Cebu to arrive this March 10, said Loreche.
This would mean that all in all, Central Visayas has so far received around 44,000 vials of COVID-19 vaccines.
The vaccines from AstraZeneca will be primarily distributed to medical frontliners age 60 years old and above, DOH-7 said.
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/bmjo