Mandaue starts vaccinating elderly against COVID-19

CEBU, Philippines — The city government of Mandaue begins today the inoculation of senior citizens, who are the second priority among population groups after frontline health workers.

Over 12,000 senior citizens in the city are set to receive their first dose of vaccines against the coronavirus disease.

Mandaue City Vaccine Board chairman and ABC-Mandaue Chapter president Ernie Manatad said the inoculation will kick off in Barangay Subangdaku and then in barangays Tabok and Cabancalan.

“These three barangays are the first ones to complete their masterlisting,” he said.

The city has 24,097 seniors registered at the Office of the Senior Citizens Affairs (OSCA).

Manatad said more than half of the registered seniors have registered for the vaccination.

“Over 50 percent of the number is included in the masterlist for A2 (senior citizens) vaccination,” he said.

Frontliners

In a separate development, 77,191 out of the 131,781 healthcare workers in Central Visayas have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine as per the Department of Health-7 data released on April 19.

The figure is broken down into 21,816 in Bohol; 45,384 in Cebu; 7,149 in Negros Oriental; and 2,842 in Siquijor.

The same DOH data showed that 16,687 healhcare workers got vaccinated for the second dose in the second month of the country’s inoculation efforts.

Of the number of recipients, 11,219 were from Cebu; 3,455 from Bohol; 1,918 from Negros Oriental; and 95 from Siquijor.

DOH-7 spokesperson and chief pathologist Dr. Mary Jean Loreche said the health department already allocated 178,560 doses of vaccines to 253 vaccination sites in Central Visayas. — KQD (FREEMAN)