BY ADRIAN P. NEMES III
At least 80 personnel from the Bacolod City Health Office are set to receive shots of the China-made Sinovac Coronavirus disease 2019 vaccines probably this month.
Dr. Chris Sorongon, deputy for data and medical analysis of the city’s Emergency Operations Center, said these personnel will include doctors, nurses, and non-medical health workers.
He said frontliners manning the various quarantine facilities of the city will also be inoculated.
But Sorongon clarified that for now, the priority for the vaccination are hospital-based frontliners considering the limited number of the vaccines that arrived.
The Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital and the Riverside Medical Center were the first medical institutions to receive some of the 6,300 doses of Sinovac vaccines that were delivered in Bacolod on Friday last week.
RMCI received 600 doses for its 300 health workers while CLMMRH got 1,600 doses for its 800 health workers last week, EOC records showed.
Originally, 850 health workers from the CLMMRH signified their intention to be inoculated based on the survey conducted by the hospital management, Sorongon said.
During the survey, the vaccine choices listed were only AstraZeneca and Moderna, he said.
Sorongon added that when another survey was conducted informing the employees that the vaccines to be used will actually be from Sinovac, only 300 of them agreed to be inoculated.
The five-day vaccination of the health workers from CLMMRH and RMCI will start today.
When the vaccination of the health workers of these two hospitals are over and there are vaccines left, they will be given to five other private hospitals.
Sorongon identified these hospitals as the Bacolod Doctors Hospital, Lady of Mercy, Metro Bacolod Hospital and Medical Center, Bacolod South General Hospital and the Bacolod Adventist Memorial Medical Center.
He said that they already told the management of these hospitals to submit the number of their health workers who would like to be vaccinated.
After the health workers have been vaccinated, and there are still vaccines available, the indigent residents of Bacolod are the next in line to be inoculated.
Policemen and other uniformed personnel as well as employees from the Department of Education are also listed as priorities for the vaccination roll-out.
Bacolod is also expected to receive 650,000 doses of vaccines from the British-Swedish pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca.
However,Although Mayor Evelio Leonardia said they don’t have any information yet whether Bacolod will be one of the recipients of the AstraZeneca vaccines that were delivered in the Philippines last week.
Leonardia had said that the soonest time that Bacolod will receive the AstraZeneca vaccines will be the second quarter of the year.
VACCINATION REGISTRATION
The mayor reiterated his appeal to the residents to register for the city’s Covid vaccination program.
Those who want to register, may log in to tinyurl.com/bcdceironline or tinyurl.com/bcdceirbrgy.
Residents may also inquire through 432-2749, 09150973390 for Globe and TM users or 09307715842 for Smart, Talk and Text and Sun subscribers.*
