The Philippines is set to expand its ongoing COVID-19 vaccination drive to include senior citizens and individuals with comorbidities in the coming days.
Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque stated that private and public hospitals are urged to prepare their ‘substitution list’ that consist of a mix of individuals from the A1, A2 and A3 categories.
A1 refers to frontline medical workers, A2 are senior citizens, and A3 are persons with comorbidities.
“We encourage all hospitals, at (and) later on ang ating mga (our) local government units — dahil ang LGUs na po ang magbabakuna sa mga seniors at comorbidities — na magkaroon talaga ng substitution list. So basta manggagaling po iyan sa A1, A2 at A3 (because the LGUs will be in charge of vaccinating senior and comorbidities, to prepare a substitution list coming from sectors A1, A2, and A3),” he said in a press briefing on Saturday night.
Roque, meanwhile, reminded the local chief executives to follow the priority list for Covid-19 vaccination.
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“Hangga’t maaari, sundin po natin iyong priority ‘no; pero kung hindi talaga maiiwasan, basta manggaling po sa A1, A2, A3 (As much as possible, let’s follow the priority; but if we cannot help it, recipients must be coming from sectors A1, A2, A3),” he added.
Duterte warned that the Philippines might lose Covid-19 vaccines that it is expected to receive through the World Health Organization (WHO)-led Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) Facility.
“Dapat sundin natin kasi sinabi sa atin ng country representative ng WHO, ‘If you do not follow the list of priority, you might lose the assistance of the WHO.’ ‘Yun ang pagkasabi (We have to follow [the priority list] because the WHO country representative had told us, ‘If you do not follow the list of priority, you might lose the assistance of the WHO.’ That’s what we were told),” he said, as per reports from the Philippine News Agency.
Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. earlier proposed simultaneous Covid-19 vaccination of priority groups belonging to sectors A1, A2, A3 while the private sector inoculates A4 or economic front-liners.
‘Yung sequential, medyo matagal po. Dapat po simultaneous po natin ginagawa (If we do it sequentially, it will take a long time. We should be vaccinating simultaneously),” he said.
The Philippines is expected to receive a total of 44 million vaccine doses through the COVAX Facility within the year.
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The country has so far received 525,600 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines through the World Health Organization-led COVAX Facility.
Apart from AstraZeneca vaccines, the country has also so far got 1 million doses Sinovac’s CoronaVac vaccine donated by Chinese government.
On Monday, President Rodrigo Duterte is scheduled to witness the arrival of around 1 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine purchased by the Philippine government from Sinovac Biotech.
