Deployment of 600,000 Sinovac doses eyed within 1st week of March

(Philstar.com) - March 3, 2021 - MANILA, Philippines — The government is targeting to distribute 600,000 doses of the Sinovac Biotech vaccine to different hospitals nationwide within the first week of March, the country’s vaccine czar said Wednesday. The country began vaccinations against COVID-19 Monday, just a day after it received donated jabs from China. So far, some 2,793 individuals got inoculated with CoronaVac in the 11 hospitals where the jabs were first deployed, Carlito Galvez Jr. said in an interview on ANC’s Headstart. Related Stories LIVE updates: COVID-19 in the Philippines 2021 “Our target for the end of the week is to deploy almost 600,000… Our target for this week is to dispatch and distribute all doses to different regions,” Galvez said. CoronaVac doses arrived in Cebu City and Davao City Tuesday, with the rollouts there expected to begin today. The initial allocation set was for 202,182 individuals in Luzon, 51,140 for Visayas and 94,540 for Mindanao, Galvez said. The vaccine czar also claimed that the demand for Sinovac vaccine is increasing. “Initially, on the first day, only a few wanted to take it, only about 13% requested for it… Now, almost every day, congressmen and mayors who want hospitals in their localities to receive the vaccine are calling us,” he said in Filipino. The government aims to vaccinate between 1.7 million and 2 million health workers by end-March. But it faces challenges not limited to the stock of coveted jabs but also reluctance of the public, including medical frontliners. Rollout for general public Galvez also said the vaccine rollout for the general public may start in late April, at the earliest. The vaccination of senior citizens and indigent families—which are included in the government’s priority list—may also begin around the same period. “Our projection for the general public as well as the senior citizens, poor families and vulnerable communities, we will start general public inoculations more or less late April or May,” he said. The government is aiming to inoculate 70 million people—about 60% of the population—this year. Galvez earlier said only 5.1 million of the 161 million doses expected this year will arrive in the country in the first quarter. The bulk of the doses will only come in the second half. The Philippines has recorded 580,442 COVID-19 cases as of Tuesday after six consecutive days more logging over 2,000 additional infections. — Gaea Katreena Cabico