The Department of Health’s regional office in Western Visayas is eyeing to start the inoculation of the priority A4 group, or essential workers, next month depending on the supply allocation.
“Based on our tracker, we could start with our A4 by June 2021. But this is dependent on the supply allocation for Western Visayas and how fast our local government units will be in implementing the vaccination once the vaccines are available,” Dr. Bea Camille Natalaray, section head of the DOH-6 Center for Health and Development’s integrated non-communicable diseases prevention and control program, said in a virtual presser yesterday.
Natalaray said a total of 107,877 individuals from priority Group A1 to A3 in Western Visayas have availed of the first dose of vaccines against the coronavirus disease 2019, as of Sunday, based on the Regional Vaccination Operations Center report.
The accomplishment is 47.24 percent of the 228,380 doses total allocation of the region intended for the first shot.
Some 28,533 have availed of Sinovac for their second dose and 234 using AstraZeneca.
“As of today, we have simultaneous vaccination of our priority groups, A1 to A3. We need to exert more efforts to complete our A1 to A3 population otherwise, we defeat the purpose of our prioritization framework,” she said.
Natalaray said healthcare workers top the priority list to protect the healthcare system and to prevent mortality by prioritizing senior citizens and persons with comorbidity.
As of May 16, the RVOC master listed 129,696 healthcare workers, 788,431 senior citizens, and 79,855 adults with comorbidity who are eligible for the inoculation.
She added that the region is expecting additional 1.5 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine, which are yet to be delivered.
Meanwhile, Natalaray said they have no data as to wastage but they are doing the “reverse logistics” where used vials are being collected and compared with the persons vaccinated.*PNA
