BY ADRIAN P. NEMES III
The registration process for Bacolod residents, who want to be vaccinated against Covid-19, is now ongoing, Dr. Chris Sorongon, deputy for medical and data analysis of the city Emergency Operations Center Task Force, said.
Sorongon said they already started profiling the list of those who will be prioritized in the vaccination rollout.
Earlier, he said policemen, health workers, and other frontliners will be on top of the list.
Sorongon also said they already distributed vaccination forms to the barangays, whose representatives will conduct house to house surveys and registration.
Only those above 18-years-old will be registered for vaccination.
The Bacolod City government has entered into a tripartite agreement with the British-Swedish pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca for the purchase of 650,000 doses of vaccine.
Bacolod Mayor Evelio Leonardia had said earlier that the city government wants to vaccinate at least 80 percent of its population.
Meanwhile, the EOC already identified the 15 barangays where the volunteers for the Covid-19 vaccine clinical trial of Janssen will come from.
But residents from other barangays may also volunteer to participate in the third phase of the clinical trial, Sorongon said.
The EOC is waiting for the guidelines from Janssen so they could start listing the names of qualified volunteers.
Janssen, owned by American multi-national corporation Johnson & Johnson (J&J), is looking for at least 500 volunteers for the third phase of its clinical trial in Bacolod City.
Dr. Adonis Guancia, principal investigator of J&J’s clinical trial in Bacolod, said it will be held until Feb. 28 and may be extended to March 15. Guancia said they will accept individuals with illnesses, such as high blood pressure, cancer, and diabetes among others as volunteers as long as they are 40 years old and above.*
