Vaccination of minors seen completed by March 2022

MANILA, Philippines — The vaccination of some 12.7 million minors aged 12 to 17 years against COVID-19 may be completed by the first quarter of 2022, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said yesterday.

“The initial goal is to cover at least 80 percent of the 12- to 17-year-olds by the end of the year,” he noted in a radio interview.

The government kicked off the pediatric vaccination against COVID-19 last Oct. 15 in eight hospitals in the National Capital Region by covering those 12- to 17-year-olds with comorbidities.

By Nov. 3, the plan is to expand the inoculation to all individuals in this age group, even if they do not have pre-existing conditions.

The government had been hiring more vaccinators to meet the demand for manpower at inoculation sites.

Duque added that dentists, medical clerks and interns have already been given the go signal to administer the jabs.

The Department of Health is also coming up with a joint memorandum circular with the Commission on Higher Education that would allow medical students to do the inoculations.

The health chief said that they hope to achieve population protection before the year ends if 50 percent of the population shall have been jabbed by then.

“That’s about 65 million Filipinos. If we can reach some 1- to 1.5-million jabs per day, most likely we can achieve that (population protection) by the end of December,” he added.