The national government targets to distribute all 600,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine to hospitals nationwide within the first week of March, according to vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. on Wednesday.
The Philippines began its COVID-19 vaccination program on Monday using vaccines from Chinese manufacturer Sinovac Biotech, which arrived on Sunday. Galvez said the 11 hospitals that received the vaccines were able to vaccinate 2,793 as of Tuesday evening.
“Ang target namin end of the week, ma-deploy na namin ‘yung almost 600 (thousand)…Ang target namin ngayong linggo, ma-dispatch na namin, ma-distribute na namin lahat ng mga doses sa different regions,” he told ANC’s Headstart.
(Our target for the end of the week is to deploy almost 600,000. Our target for this week is to dispatch, distribute all doses to the different regions.)
Galvez said the government initially allocated Sinovac vaccines (2 doses per person) for 202,182 individuals in Luzon, 51,140 for the Visayas, and 94,540 for Mindanao.
The vaccine czar said those in excess of 600,000 would be filled in by the AstraZeneca vaccines once they arrive in the Philippines.
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PH aims to distribute all 600k doses of Sinovac vaccines this week
“Initially, nung unang araw, walang halos kumuha, mga 13 percent lang ang nag-request…Ngayon, halos araw-araw, may tumatawag ng mga congressmen at mga mayors na talagang gusto nilang mabigyan din ‘yung mga ospital po nila sa kanilang mga lugar,” he said.
(Initially, on the first day, there was almost no one who wanted to get it, only about 13 percent requested for it. Now, almost everyday, there are congressmen and mayors who want to have hospitals in their areas also given the vaccine.)
Galvez said Monday that the government aims to vaccinate at least 1.4 million health workers in one month.
“Pipilitin po natin na matapos [ang pagbabakuna sa] lahat ng health workers nationwide ngayong Marso,” Galvez said during the COVID-19 vaccine rollout at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) in Manila.
“Wala pong maiiwan, walang iwanan,” he added.
The FDA chief said that Sinovac’s efficacy is from 65.3% to 91.2%. However, it only reached 50.4% among health workers with COVID-19 exposure.