Vaccination of frontline medical workers done by May

MANILA – Malacañang on Monday said the vaccination of frontline healthcare workers is expected to be completed by May.

Citing National Task Force (NTF) Against Covid-19 chief implementer and vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr., Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said vaccination of frontline medical workers would take at least three months.

“I’m restating what Secretary Galvez said: Matatapos natin ang health front-liners (Health front-liners will be done) by May and we can begin with the economic front-liners by April,” he said in a Palace press briefing.

As of Sunday, Roque said nearly 30,000 frontline medical workers have been vaccinated against Covid-19.

The government, he said, will need 3.4 million Covid-19 vaccine doses for 1.7 million healthcare workers in the country.

“Mayroon na tayong halos 30,000 or 29,266 na medical front-liners na nabakunahan (Almost 30,000 or 29,266 medical front-liners have been vaccinated),” he said.

A total of 383,960 vaccines have been deployed where 329,480 are China’s Sinovac-made CoronaVac vaccines and 54,500 are United Kingdom’s AstraZeneca vaccines.

Roque also said the first dose deployment of Sinovac vaccines has been completed.

“Iyong first dose deployment po ng Sinovac, tapos na po. Na-deploy na po lahat iyong first dose ng Sinovac (The first dose deployment of Sinovac is finished. All the first doses of Sinovac have been deployed),” he said.

Galvez earlier said another 1 million doses of CoronaVac procured by the government are set to arrive the Philippines on March 21.

He said the Chinese government has also vowed to donate additional 400,000 doses of CoronaVac. China’s first donation of 600,000 doses of CoronaVac arrived in the Philippines on Feb. 28.

The Philippines also received 487,200 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine through the World Health Organization-led COVAX Facility on March 4. Additional 38,400 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine arrived on March 7.

In light of the arrival of the AstraZeneca vaccines, the interim National Immunization Technical Advisory Group’s (NITAG) said Sinovac vaccines are not recommended to be administered to healthcare workers aged 60 years old and above.

The government aims to inoculate 50 million to 70 million Filipinos nationwide this year.