The inoculation of essential workers or those belonging to the A4 priority group of the national government’s vaccination program may begin next month at the earliest.
National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Undersecretary Rosemarie Edillon said in a briefing on Monday that the Department of Health (DOH) is now preparing detailed guidelines on the matter.
She added that the framework for the A4 priority group has been approved by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID).
The first on list are those in the commuter transport sector or A4.1, followed by A4.2 comprising frontline government personnel in the justice, security, transport, and social protection sectors; and A4.3 composed of market vendors, supermarket and grocery frontline workers, and those in delivery services.
A4.5 and A4.5 include those working in the manufacturing of food, beverage, medical products, and food retail including food service delivery. This is followed by the A4.6 group that includes frontline government personnel.
Groups A4.7 to A4.13 include frontline financial services workers, teachers and personnel of medical allied courses, hotel and accommodation establishments workers, religious leaders, government infrastructure projects workers, frontline security personnel, and select overseas Filipino workers.
Edillon said it will be up to the IATF-EID to decide whether or not to include members of media in the priority group. – Report from Mark Fetalco/AG-jlo
