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 – Central Visayas still needs to vaccinate at least 98,000 healthcare workers (HCWs), nearly two months since it started its COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
Based on the recent report made by the Visayas COVID-19 Vaccination Operations Center (VVOC), the region, as of April 28, still needs to administer COVID-19 vaccines to 98,698 medical frontliners.
The figures included those who are yet to receive their first and second doses of the COVID-19 vaccines.
Local health officials here listed at least 130,000 HCWs eligible to receive free COVID-19 shots from the national government.
Of this number, 32,083 have completed their inoculation schedules, which meant they have already received the two doses.
The same report, on the other hand, showed that at least 43, 823 HCWs are yet to receive their first doses, and another 55, 875 for the second doses.
VVOC reported a success rate of 66.7 percent in the number of medical frontliners in Central Visayas vaccinated with the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine as of April 28. This translates to 87, 958 frontline HCWs in the region, classified under A1 of the Philippine National Deployment Plan for COVID-19 vaccines, that have been given the first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Individuals under A1 are the topmost priority of the government’s vaccination drive against COVID-19.
Central Visayas’ vaccine rollout began last March 4.
On the other hand, the same VVOC report showed that the region has so far administered the first dose of COVID-19 vaccines to 9,176 senior citizens as of April 28.
There are 572,626 elderlies in Central Visayas who already gave their consent to be vaccinated, VVOC said.
Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, spokesperson of the Department of Health here (DOH-7), said Central Visayas is yet to receive a fresh batch of COVID-19 vaccines.
Several localities here, including Cebu City, have already used up their supplies of COVID-19 vaccines, prompting them to halt their respective vaccination rollouts.
VVOC’s data stated that Central Visayas was allocated 178,560 doses of COVID-19 vaccines from two brands – CoronaVac by China’s Sinovac Biotech and AstraZeneca by British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca.
On the other hand, the National Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Disease (IATF) still placed the entire region under Modified General Community Quarantine (MGCQ) until May 14. /rcg
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