GOV’T SETS SIGHTS ON 90M FULL DOSES, 71M BOOSTER SHOTS THIS YEAR

THIRD SHOT. Severiano Dolatre, 61, gets his AstraZeneca booster shot from Maribeth Sotto, a midwife, at the covered court of Bagong Silang Elementary School in Caloocan City on Jan. 6, 2022. The additional layer of protection against Covid-19 is proven to almost eliminate the chances of developing severe symptoms of Covid-19. (PNA photo by Ben Briones)

More than 71.16 million adult Filipinos are expected to have received booster vaccine doses against Covid-19 by the end of the third quarter this year.

They will come from the projected 90 million fully vaccinated Filipinos before the end of June.

In his report during President Rodrigo Duterte’s Talk to the People aired late Monday night, National Task Force Against Covid-19 chief implementer Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. also enumerated the various challenges of the vaccination program.

On top of the list is the rising infection rate among health care workers that have depleted the manpower of vaccination sites.

Some local government units are also busy with electionrelated activities while brand preferences “greatly affect and compromise the shelf life of other effective vaccines”.

“Though ‘yung 100 million doses na nasa stockpile po natin, mahal na Presidente, ay sapat sa remaining primary series ng unvaccinated at para sa 25 million na eligible ngayong quarter for boosters (Though we still have 100 million doses in the stockpile, Mr. President, we have enough primary series for the unvaccinated individuals and booster shots for 25 million eligible individuals),” he added.

Galvez said there is still a need to procure additional 17 million doses for booster vaccination this year while 26 million lower doses are required for the vaccination of the 5 to 11 age group.

The regions most devastated by Typhoon Odette still have low vaccination output as electricity has yet to be completely restored. “We will pursue the vaccination of 77 million Filipinos before the end of [Quarter 1] 2022, while at the same time, finishing the 12-17 years old by end of Q1 also,” Galvez said.

The government’s next immediate goal is to meet the original target of fully vaccinating 90 million by the second quarter, he added.

“Our last milestone is to finish the booster of 71.16 million by end of the third quarter and we will push also for the vaccination of the rest of the population to make sure that all Filipinos are protected by the vaccines,” he added.

Based on the latest data from the National Covid-19 vaccination dashboard, the Philippines has already administered 114,249,221 doses nationwide -- 52,849,101 with complete doses and 3,577,703 with booster shots or additional doses. (PNA)