The Sinovac vaccines for health workers in Marawi City and Lanao del Sur is scheduled to arrive this Friday.
Maguindanao provincial heath officials announced that 4,200 doses of Sinovac anti-COVID vaccine arrived yesterday at Cotabato Airport, and for the entire Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, or BARMM.
“The Chinese-manufactured vaccines arrived on a Philippine Airlines plane that landed in Awang Airport in Cotabato and was received by BARMM acting Health Minister Dr. Ameril Usman, provincial health officials of Maguindanao, and UNICEF representatives,” the official said.
According to Atty. Naguib Sinarimbo of the Ministry of Interior and Local Government of BARMM, the vaccines will be distributed to the following: 1,400 for Maguindanao; 972 in Lanao del Sur; 278 in Basilan; 1,032 in Sulu; and 518 in Tawi-Tawi.
He added that the vaccine that arrived would only be enough for 2,100 health workers, as each health worker would be injected twice after the first, and the second after 28 days.
BARMM has a total of 20,000 health workers in five provinces, and the cities of Marawi in Lanao del Sur, Lamitan in Basilan, and Cotabato are the only part of the region.
He added that vaccines for health workers of Cotabato City are included in the purchased vaccine for Region 12.
Sinovac vaccines for health workers in Marawi, Lanao del Sur will arrive this Friday
Vaccines of health workers of Amai Pakpak Medical Center in Marawi are included in Region 10 or Northern Mindanao.
According to Dr. Alinader Minalang, deputy of the IATF of Lanao del Sur and IPHO of the province, the vaccines will arrive this Friday from Cotabato.
Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said Monday 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 first batch of COVID-19 vaccines in the Philippines, CoronaVac from the Chinese company Sinovac, arrived this Sunday.
Meanwhile, almost 500,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines arrived on Thursday night, March 4.