Around one million doses of COVID-19 vaccines will be arriving in February and these will be dedicated for health care workers.
According to Vaccine Czar Carlito Galvez Jr., the vaccines will come from Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca, and Sinovac.
“We are negotiating na mayroon pong darating na (We are negotiating the arrival of) more or less 200,000 to 500,000 AstraZeneca for our health workers, Pfizer sa (in) COVAX, and also 500,000 for Sinovac,” Galvez disclosed.
Vaccine clusters are now studying the possibility of including families of frontline workers among the priority beneficiaries, considering the risk of getting infected from family members who are not vaccinated.
The government aims to secure 148 million doses of vaccines to inoculate 50 to 70 million Filipinos this year to achieve herd immunity.
“We know that the vaccines are not enough to be delivered all at the same time so that we can immunize this number of people in the population,” Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire stated.
“Ang priority po natin ngayon ay mabawasan ang pagkakaospital, mabawasan po ‘yung mga nagkakasakit o nagpapakita ng sintomas (Our priority now is to lessen admission in hospitals and those getting infected or showing symptoms),” Vergeire added.
The DOH has already established vaccine operations centers in all its regional offices in preparation for the rollout of vaccines. Readiness assessment tools for local governments and trainings for possible adverse events are also in place.
Meanwhile, individuals with allergies to food and drugs are advised to consult medical professionals before receiving the vaccines. – Report from Mark Fetalco
