DICT, San Juan launch COVID-19 vaccine registry

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Information and Communications Technology  (DICT) and the San Juan city government are pilot testing the country’s COVID-19 vaccine registry.

The Vaccine Information Management System Immunization Registry (VIMS-IR) – which would streamline the vaccination process from registration and up to the post-vaccination procedures – was launched at the San Juan Arena on Tuesday by DICT Secretary Gregorio Honasan II and testing czar Vince Dizon with the local government.

“We are very happy that San Juan is the pilot city of the VIMS-IR with the ultimate goal of improving and speeding up the vaccination process. Our medical workers and volunteers were very open to sharing their points to improve the registry so that when DICT implements it all over the country, it will be user-friendly and easy to use,” Mayor Francis Zamora said.

The DICT said the system would provide vaccination teams a user-friendly interface that enables them to update the data of a vaccine recipient “in real time” and would help lighten the workload of vaccination teams.

Zamora said the city was chosen for a pilot due to the city’s “clear and organized vaccination process,” which he said averaged 20 minutes per person from registration to vaccination.

“With the pilot implementation of VIMS-IR, the (city government) was able to cut the processing time even shorter to 10 minutes per person from registration to vaccination,” he added.

Honasan said the system would be adopted in the rest of the country if the pilot test in San Juan yields promising results.

Meanwhile, Zamora received his first dose of Sinovac Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccine at the FilOil Flying V Center yesterday.

He received his jab from Paz Corrales, assistant director of the
Department of Health (DOH)’s National Capital Region office,. The entire process from the standard medical examination to administering the jab  was over in 14 minutes.

Zamora, a COVID-19 survivor, was supposed to be inoculated 90 days
after his recovery but the DOH revised its guidelines and said people who just beat the virus no longer have to wait for three months.