San Juan starts inoculating citizens with Pfizer vaccine
MANILA, Philippines — San Juan City started inoculating its citizens with Pfizer BioNTech-made vaccines Wednesday after the city government received 11,700 doses of the vaccine from the Department of Health the day before.
In a statement sent to reporters, the local government unit said that those who fall under the A1 (medical frontliners), A2 (senior citizens), and A3 (persons with comorbidity) categories could avail of the new vaccines.
A total of 5,850 San Juaneños will get the Pfizer jab, it said, while the city targets around 500 doses of this brand to be administered by the end of the day.
To recall, this is the first batch from the 193,050 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines from the World Health Organization-led COVAX Facility distributed to COVID-19 high-risk areas.
“Months before we had the Pfizer vaccine, we have prepared for this and already rented an ultra-cold freezer to store them properly. We opted to rent instead of buying one since it is much more economical and allowed us to spend our budget wisely and use the savings for other COVID-related activities,” Mayor Francis Zamora said in the statement.
“This vaccine is fragile. Each dose of it is like gold. We don't want it to go to waste when citizens can benefit from it. Our health officers underwent proper training on how to handle it to maintain its high efficacy,” the mayor also said.
San Juan vaccination capacity increases, LGU says
Currently, San Juan has vaccinated a total of 13,085 people, including:
- 8,620 who have received their first dose of Sinovac with 3,801 already able to get their full dose.
- 2,460 others received their first dose of AstraZeneca.
The city also disclosed its remaining vaccine stores ready for inoculation as follows:
- 10,075 doses of the China-made Sinovac, with 595 second doses administered Wednesday.
- 12,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine
- 2,460 will be allocated for the second dose of the first batch of San Juaneños who got the AstraZeneca jab
- 9,540 allocated for the first dose of another batch of San Juan residents and frontliners, 802 of them are scheduled today.
After previously vaccinating between 600 and 800 individuals per day, the city said it can inoculate over 1,500 daily with the new vaccines.
This number, the city government said, can be further increased to around 3,000 a day in multiple sites once the city gets it 100,000 doses of city-procured AstraZenca vaccines.
As of May 11, the LGU said it was able to bring down its active cases to 268 from its highest recorded cases of 1,226 last April 12.
Other LGUs secure Pfizer jabs
The Pasay City local government is also expecting 1,170 Pfizer doses good for 585 people later Wednesday night, while Manila City will be handing out 210 doses of the same on Thursday morning.
Muntinlupa City also said it expects to receive 7,000 doses of the vaccine, assuring its citizens in a statement of its readiness for the cold-chain management of the jabs. No timeline was provided.
Quezon City also told reporters it had secured Pfizer vaccines good for 5,800 individuals with barangay-assisted vaccination set to begin Thursday.
To date, the Department of Health has recorded 1,118,359 coronavirus infections in the country, 53,214 of which are still classified as active cases.
— Franco Luna
The national government has so far secured two official deals for COVID-19 vaccine supplies in the Philippines, one with Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac and another with the Serum Institute of India.
Watch this space for bite-sized developments on the vaccines in the Philippines. (Main image by Markus Spiske via Unsplash)
Health Officer-in-Charge Maria Rosario Vergeire says the general population may now get their second booster jab.
"We're just waiting for the release of implementing guidelines, then we'll start rolling out our second booster for the general population," she says. — Gaea Katreena Cabico
Amid questions on vaccines being administered, the Department of Health assures the public all doses are safe and effective as the “process of extending shelf life goes through thorough stability studies.”
“The government ensures that every vaccine that is injected with an extended shelf life has gone through studies, and is still safe and effective against COVID-19,” it adds.
Government must increase vaccination capacity across the Philippines in anticipation of a surge of COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant of the corona virus, Sen. Risa Hontiveros says.
She says local government units and the private sector can work together to put up more vaccination centers and deploy more vaccination teams to get more people inoculated against COVID-19.
"The active COVID cases have nearly doubled in three days. The positivity rate is almost four times the ceiling set by the World Health Organization. Huwag na nating hintayin na sobrang lumala pa ang sitwasyon bago tayo gumawa ng paraan para mapabilis ang ating pagbabakuna."
FDA chief Eric Domingo says that its agency has given emergency approval for the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11.
The United States immunized around 900,000 children aged five-to-11 against Covid in the first week the Pfizer vaccine was authorized for them, a White House official says Wednesday.
Roughly 700,000 more have made appointments at pharmacies, White House Covid coordinator Jeff Zients tells reporters.
"The program is just getting up to full strength," he says, adding most of the shots were given in the last couple of days alone. — AFP
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