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MANILA, Philippines – The government wants to vaccinate 50 to 60 percent of the country’s population against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) to achieve herd immunity, the Department of Health (DOH) said on Friday.
Undersecretary of Health, María Rosario Vergeire, said the government initially planned to vaccinate 20 percent of the population, but this goal was raised during a DOH discussion with the National Task Force against the main implementer of COVID-19 and the secretary of vaccines. Carlito Galvez Jr.
“When we were discussing and under the instructions of our vaccine czar, Sec. Gálvez, we would like to have this expanded coverage for this vaccine that at least 50 to 60 percent of the population can be vaccinated,” he told ABS-CBN News. Channel.
“So if we have the priorities for these vaccines and when we do, we need to be able to calculate the costs, as I said, the end-to-end process, and eventually we can expand coverage to include at least up to 50 percent of the population of these. vaccines, “he added.
According to Vergeire, that percentage of vaccination coverage is necessary to achieve herd immunity or a vaccination concept in which enough people in a specific area are protected against infectious diseases.
“So it’s really important that we can expand coverage with this goal that we have, but as we’ve said, we’ll first prioritize specific populations and then we can implement it and hopefully we can reach 60 percent of the target population,” she added.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III previously said that healthcare workers, uniformed personnel and the poor will be among those who will have priority to receive the COVID-19 vaccine once it is available.
Earlier, the American biotech company Moderna announced that its experimental COVID-19 vaccine was found to be 94.5 percent effective based on the first results of a clinical trial with more than 30,000 participants.
Pfizer and BioNTech also said that a full study of their experimental COVID-19 vaccine showed it to be 95 percent effective.
/ MUF
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What you need to know about the coronavirus.
For more information on COVID-19, call the DOH hotline: (02) 86517800 local 1149/1150.
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