VACCINE CZAR ASSURES FILIPINOS IN ISLAND PROVINCES TO BE PRIORITIZED IN THE VACCINATION

Secretary Carlito Galvez

During the joint virtual meeting of the National Vaccination Operations Center – Regional Vaccination Operations Center (NVOC-RVOC) via Zoom platform, Secretary Carlito Galvez, vaccine czar, emphasized that the island provinces of the country will also be prioritized for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines and vaccine administrators should be able to establish a more systematize conduct of vaccination.

“Let’s ensure that the vaccines in the island provinces are properly handled/managed by the LGUs to maintain the efficacy of the vaccines. We should also see to it that these are consumed as targeted,” bared Galvez.

Galvez also elaborated that every LGU should be allocating a buffer of the vaccines for those in the eligible priority A4 group particularly the Philippine National Police (PNP), Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) among other government workers. “Many of the PNP who are in the frontline had been infected with COVID-19, so we want our frontliners to get vaccinated as soon as possible,” he cited.

“Rest assured that we will give fair distribution of COVID-19 vaccines to our NVOC-RVOC members in the country. By November, we are optimistic that we would be able to achieve at least 70% herd immunity. So, let’s continue to fast-track the conduct of vaccination in the regions,” he added.

Galvez further revealed that starting the month of March up to July 8, 2021, a total of 12,695,215 doses of vaccines were administered in the different regions of the country, broken down as follows: March - 777,908; April - 1,141,943; May - 3,328,507; June - 5,455,346; and July - 1,876,112. “There are about 8-10 million vaccine doses are being targeted for the month of July 2021,” he said. (JPG/ NCLM, PIA-Caraga)