Health workers in 4 hospitals in Metro Manila will receive the first Covid vaccines

MANILA, Philippines – Health workers at four Covid-19 referral hospitals in Metro Manila will be the first to be vaccinated against the severe respiratory disease once vaccine supplies arrive this month, the head of the program said Wednesday. government vaccination.

Carlito Galvez Jr., who handles the procurement of vaccines for the government’s response to coronavirus, identified hospitals as the Philippine General Hospital in Manila, the Philippines Pulmonary Center and the East Avenue Medical Center in Quezon City, and the Medical Center Memorial Dr. José Natalio Rodríguez (Hospital Tala) in the city of Caloocan.

“We will give priority to the four referral hospitals in Metro Manila. It will not take long, we will only inspect it for two or three days and then we will carry out the vaccines immediately, ”said Gálvez, who is also the head of the National Working Group against Covid-19, at a press conference.

Next in line are healthcare workers at other Covid-19 referral hospitals in Metro Manila, Cebu City and Davao City, Gálvez said.

1.7 million health workers

Previously, the government said 1.7 million frontline health workers were on its priority list for vaccination.

Other groups on the list are homeless seniors, other seniors, and uniformed personnel.

The Undersecretary of Health, María Rosario Vergeire, said at the same press conference that the master list of health workers to be vaccinated would be ready by February 15.

He said the list would be encoded in an electronic Covid-19 vaccination registry, to which hospitals could upload their lists of workers to be vaccinated.

Vergeire said a “unique identifier” would be assigned to each healthcare worker to avoid duplication and track the progress of vaccinated workers.

Monitoring system

The Department of Health (DOH) will also have a monitoring system for adverse events or side effects after vaccines, he said.

Vergeire also said DOH would consider a 5 percent wastage of vaccines due to storage and distribution issues or recipient recall as “acceptable.”

“We have to keep it as minimal as possible because every dose will count. All Filipinos urgently need these Covid-19 vaccines, ”he said.

Galvez said the government would study a proposal to include national athletes and coaches who will participate in the Southeast Asian Games in November on the priority list.

“They are not included on the list yet because the World Health Organization list is very strict,” he said. “Anyway, there is enough time for them to get vaccinated.”

The Interagency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, the temporary body that oversees the government’s response to the coronavirus, will see if there is an excess of vaccines that can be administered to athletes, Gálvez said.

Vergeire said the single-dose Covid-19 vaccine developed by the US pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson would be beneficial to the Philippines because its administration would be “operationally simple.”

He said only one dose of the vaccine would be needed to achieve efficacy and immunity to the coronavirus.

The vaccine is known as Janssen and does not need to be stored at very low temperatures.

Vergeire said the government was negotiating with Johnson & Johnson for 10 million doses of the vaccine.

1 million doses of Pfizer

Galvez said the Philippines would request an additional 900,000 doses of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine from the global COVAX vaccine exchange scheme to increase the initial supply from 117,000 doses to 1 million.

“The COVAX agreement establishes that if we can have a presentation of 900,000 [doses] for our Pfizer vaccines to reach 1 million, so we are doing it. Now we are preparing the letter and we will send it before February 14, ”said Gálvez.

Vergeire said the easing of quarantine restrictions would not depend on the implementation of the vaccination program.

“The Covid-19 vaccine is just an additional factor, where to ease restrictions or not at this time when the vaccine will come in installments. We will still have to see if the vaccine can block [coronavirus] transmission, ”Vergeire said.

On Wednesday, the DOH reported 1,266 additional coronavirus infections, bringing the total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the country to 530,118.

The DOH said that 130 more patients had recovered, bringing the total number of Covid-19 survivors to 487,721. But the death toll rose to 10,942, as another 68 patients had succumbed to the disease.

Deaths and recoveries left the country with 31,455 active cases, of which 88.8 percent were mild, 5.8 percent asymptomatic, 0.53 percent moderate, 2.4 percent severe, and 2.5 percent critical. —WITH REPORT FROM PATRICIA DENISE M. CHIU

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