An empty vial of CoronaVac, the COVID-19 vaccine brand of Sinovac, sitting on top of a table used in a vaccination site. Central Visayas has already rolled out COVID-19 vaccines for its healthcare workers. | CDN Digital Photo by Morexette Marie B. Erram
CEBU CITY, Philippines – Central Visayas has already received enough doses of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines to ensure all hospital workers in the region get inoculated, the regional health office said.
Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, spokesperson of the Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH-7), said a total of 4,032 hospital frontliners were already administered with the first dose of CoronaVac as of March 10, 2021.
CoronaVac is the COVID-19 vaccine brand of Chinese drugmaker Sinovac.
These 4,032 inoculated workers came both from public and private hospitals in Central Visayas, Loreche said.
Loreche also said the region has already secured enough doses for all 30,000 hospital workers, following the arrival of 30,000 vials from British drugmaker AstraZeneca last March 10.
Based on data provided by DOH-7, a total of 62,540 COVID-19 vaccines from Sinovac and AstraZeneca were shipped to Central Visayas.
Initial survey from the health department reported that the region needed around 60,000 doses of vaccines if it meant all healthcare workers in hospitals will be inoculated.
“These (62,540 vaccine doses) should be enough for all healthcare workers,” said Loreche.
But Loreche said Central Visayas still needed 50,000 more doses of COVID-19 vaccines if the region wants to include healthcare workers employed by local governments in the inoculation program.
“We have approximately 53,000 healthcare workers in Region 7 if we’re going to include those down to the LGU (local government unit) level such as the RHUs (Rural Health Unit) and TTMFs (Temporary Treatment and Monitoring Facilities),” she said.
“We already have around 62,000 doses (so if we’re going to inoculate all healthcare workers including those from LGU and TTMFs), we need 50,000 more doses,” she explained.
It has been a week since the COVID-19 vaccination drive began in Central Visayas, starting with hospital workers from the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC), the largest COVID-referral hospital in the region.
Privately owned hospitals have also kicked off their separate inoculation campaigns.
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