| File photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Only 5,000 Cebu City residents may actually get the Pfizer vaccines that have recently arrived in Central Visayas.
The Vaccination Operations Center (VOC) said only 5,000 vaccines had been allocated to the city for now and another allocation was given to the Project Balik Buhay (PBB).
Doctor Jeffrey Ibones, city health officer-in-charge, said in a press conference on May 13, 2021, that because the Pfizer vaccine was new, the DOH had decided to keep all vaccination in a hospital setting in anticipation of adverse effects.
“Lahi ang requirements sa Pfizer vaccines. Bag-o sad siya mao na ganahan ang DOH nga imonitor sa ang inoculation,” he said.
(The requirements of the Pfizer vaccines are different. It is also a new vaccines so the DOH would like to monitor the inoculation first.)
Furthermore, the Pfizer vaccine has different storage requirements as compared to AstraZeneca and Sinovac, making it a challenge to transport them to the vaccination sites in the malls and schools.
With this, the DOH has limited the number of vaccinees through the Cebu City government and PBB and has also required a list of individuals who will be getting the vaccines ahead of time.
Cebu City vaccinees will be inoculated at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) while the PBB vaccinees will be inoculated at the Chong Hua Hospital.
Ibones said they had yet to identify who would be prioritized for these 5,000 doses and this was why the registration would be important so they could already have a starting point in identifying the Pfizer beneficiaries.
For now, he said they would continue to coordinate with the DOH on the requirements for the Pfizer vaccine, especially on the possibility of bringing the vaccines to other sites aside from the hospitals.
“Dili ta ganahan masayang ang kini nga vaccines,” he added.
(We don’t want these vaccines to go to waste.)
/dbs
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