Kids 5-11 years old up next in vax drive

CEBU, Philippines —  Vaccination for children ages 5 to 11 years old will start on February 4 in the National Capital Region while that in other regions is expected to follow a week after.

 National Task Force (NTF) Against Covid-19 chief implementer, Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., said during President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s Talk to the People that it will be done “phase by phase.”

The first phase will be in NCR with two sites – hospital-based and one local government unit (LGU)-based vaccination site.

A week after the pilot implementation, it will be expanded to other regions.

"We will open the hospital and non-hospital vaccination site and we will expand the sites further to other regions after one week. Again, we will open our vaccination roll-out on February 4," said Galvez.

The Covid-19 vaccine to be used for this age group is expected to arrive either at the end of this month or on February 2.

It will have a different formulation from the other eligible population, making it safer for the younger kids, Galvez said.

So far, the country only has Pfizer vaccine for the said age group while other vaccine brands’ Emergency Use Authorization for the young bracket is still under evaluation.

Galvez also disclosed that the draft policy regarding this is expected to be released within this week while town hall meetings will be conducted from January 24 to 28 for the roll out of the pediatric vaccination under the 5-11 years old age bracket.

Ready

Meanwhile, Cebu City Health Department officer-in-charge Dr. Jeffrey Ibones said the city government is already prepared for the vaccination for the 5-11 group, but they will still wait for the guidelines before opening registration for this group.

Ibones said they will include the said age group in the vaccination at the Cebu City Sports Center and hopefully at Southwestern University Phinma.

Ibones said they also have to add more pediatricians to handle this age group.

Although it has not yet started, Ibones assured that their vaccinators are well-trained.

Milestone

Meanwhile, Cebu has breached the five million mark in the number of COVID-19 doses administered as of January 24, 2022, the Visayas Vaccination COVID-19 Operations Center said yesterday.

VVOC spokesperson and Department of Health-7 chief pathologist Dr. Mary Jean Loreche said that a total of 5,035,560 doses have been administered — 2,676,843 for the first dose, 2,258,832 for the second dose, and 99,886 for the booster dose.

Data showed that Cebu Province has already administered a total of 2,454,634 doses; Cebu City, 1,373,050 doses; Mandaue City, 588,713 doses; and Lapu-Lapu City, 619,167 doses.

For the entire Central Visayas, a total of 7,316,982 doses have already been administered — 3,838,257 for the first dose, 3,300,494 for the second dose and 178,231 for the booster dose.

Entire Cebu has given a total of 5,017,809 doses; Bohol, 1,174,470 doses; Negros Oriental, 992,955 doses; and Siquijor, 132,748 doses.

Self-Test Kits

Also, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the approval of two brands of home antigen self-test kits namely, Panbio COVID-19 Antigen Self-Test (Abbot) and SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Test (Labnovation Technologies, Inc.) Self-Test for Home Use.

It advised the public to buy only FDA-approved test kits following reports of confiscated unauthorized and illegal kits from syndicates. — Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon , JMD (FREEMAN)