CEBU, Philippines — The cities of Cebu and Talisay received a fresh supply of COVID-19 vaccines from the Department of Health (DOH)-7 on Wednesday, June 23.
The allocations are part of the 20,800 doses of Sinovac the DOH central office gave Central Visayas.
Out of this number, 5,000 doses were given to Cebu City and 4,000 doses were given to Talisay City, said Dr. Van Baton, DOH-7’s new spokesperson for the vaccination program
“We have delivered initially 5,000 doses to Cebu City and 4,000 doses to Talisay City. The allocation of the remaining doses will be finalized today,” Baton said yesterday.
It was only on Tuesday, June 21, that Talisay Mayor Gerald Anthony Gullas announced that the city would stop accepting walk-in vaccinees temporarily as the remaining doses were enough for residents who have registered.
The city is preparing a new vaccination site at the CIT University, to ramp up its vaccination program.
DOH-7 will distribute the remainder of the 20,800 doses to other local government units in Metro Cebu.
Meanwhile, the city’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) has approved the request of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) for its personnel to be administered the first shot of the vaccine.
“The head of the city’s EOC, Councilor Joel Garganera, called us and he said that our request was approved… We will be waiting for the availability of the Department of Health (DOH) to administer the vaccination,” said Lt. Col. Wilbert Parilla, CCPO’s deputy director for operations.
Policemen are also considered frontliners and CCPO made the request with the EOC last June 11.
Parilla said CCPO will accept any brand of vaccine DOH will administer.
"We are ready. We will show (it) that we should all be vaccinated," he said.
With COVID-19 vaccines considered even more precious than gold these days, those already scheduled for inoculation are reminded to appear on vaccination day to avoid wastage.
In Central Visayas, there have been at least 45 doses wasted – some of which were attributed to those failed to show up on the scheduled vaccination. The others doses were reportedly defective.
So far, DOH-7 has received a total of 783,710 doses from four brands from the national government since March.
National supply
Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez reported that around four million doses of anti-COVID 19 shots are still expected to arrive towards the end of June.
Galvez said Sinovac and Moderna have confirmed the deliveries of 1.5 million doses of CoronaVac on June 24 and 250,000 doses of Moderna on June 27.
The COVAX facility, on the other hand, will be shipping out more than 2 million AstraZeneca doses, while the Gamaleya Institute is expected to deliver 150,000 doses of Sputnik V’s component II vaccines also this month.
By July, more than 11 million vaccine doses are expected to arrive in the Philippines as manufacturers ramp up their deliveries.
Sinovac is set to deliver 4.5 million doses, with Moderna and Gamaleya Institute expected to send one million doses each, while Astrazeneca is sending an initial trance of 1.17 million doses procured by the private sector
The COVAX facility is also expected to ship another four million doses of AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines.
Galvez said that Sinovac has committed to complete by September the deliveries of the 20.5 million doses of CoronaVac vaccines procured by the government through the Asian Development Bank.
Mobile vaccination
With more vaccines expected to arrive in July, DOH-7 urged barangays and local government units to develop a strategy for mobile vaccination teams in order to reach senior citizens with limited mobility but eligible for the vaccine, and for hard-to-reach barangays.
DOH-7 Director Jaime Berdanas made the call on Tuesday after vaccination records showed that only 17.5 percent of 549,444 individuals in the A2 priority group have been vaccinated.
“Our senior citizens really are limited ang mobility, some of them poorly mobile. So our vaccination team in our barangays should try to evolve into something that is more friendly to our senior citizens and friendly to those who really cannot go to our vaccination posts,” he said.
He added that the same should be done in geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas (GIDA).
“This (mobile vaccination) is highly encouraged and this would be the strategy to go for in GIDA as soon as we expand the coverage of the vaccination when our vaccines arrive,” he said.
In Toledo City, satellite vaccinations have been conducted in some barangays, specifically to boost the vaccination of the A2 priority group.
Dr. Gie Maybuena, Medical Officer III at the Toledo City Health Department, said only 6 to 7 percent of the 17,000 senior citizens listed for the vaccination have been inoculated.
“Wala pa sad na namo nahisgutan ang mobile vaccination. So far, ang among strategy is naa lang mi main post, currently naa mi sa Toledo City Health Department sa Ilihan, ug naa pud tay satellite nga post one barangay per district,” Maybuena said.
Toledo City is divided into five districts in terms of health and the strategy is to choose one barangay in each district to host the satellite vaccination.
“Pero we plan gyud nga muadto mi especially aning mga GIDA barangays nato ... especially kaning mga senior citizens nato, di man gyud ni sila mubyahe uh lagyo jud… nagduha pa gani sila ug pabakuna unya layo pa gyud kaayo so the more nga di sila magpabakuna,” Maybuena said.
One major problem they have when going upland, he said, is the lack of available temperature regulator for the vaccines.
He said the city’s health department has been holding vaccination symposia to address the issue of vaccine hesitancy, including in the city’s hard-to-reach barangays. More and more people are reportedly more willing now to get vaccinated.
There are 17 active vaccination centers among local government units in Metro Cebu.
Region 7 status
In Region 7, as June 22, 2021, a total of 116,547 of 132,989 healthcare workers have received the first dose while 79,831 healthcare workers have already received the second dose.
Meanwhile, 100,859 of 549,444 senior citizens have received the first dose while 25,407 have received the second dose.
For the A3 priority group or persons with comorbidities, 115,933 have received the first dose and 16,328 have received the second dose. This priority group has 168,784 individuals eligible for vaccination. — with reports from Correspondent Decemay P. Padilla, Loreine Kyra Lebumfacil and Dominic I. Dilao, CNU Interns, and Jean S. Salgados, SU Intern Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon, JMO (FREEMAN)