MANILA, Philippines — The National Vaccination Operations Center (NVOC) admitted yesterday that the target of fully vaccinating some 90 million Filipinos by June 30 will not likely be achieved.
At a public briefing, NVOC head and Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said they may not be able to meet this goal by the end of the Duterte administration.
“It’s difficult. We are first to admit that,” she noted.
Cabotaje added they are now focusing on the initial goal of fully immunizing some 77 million Filipinos, which will require the administration of 900,000 jabs per day.
Data showed as of April 18, there were 67 million fully inoculated individuals while only 12.7 million got booster shots.
“We are now on the last mile (of vaccination). It’s really hard to cover one-third of the population,” she said.
According to Cabotaje, many people are not yet convinced to get the jabs while others are located in remote areas of the country.
“We are scaling up our house-to-house vaccination strategy. We are focused on areas with low coverage. We are working closely with the Department of the Interior and Local Government and local government units,” she added.
Cabotaje hoped they could go full-blast in vaccination activities for the rest of April and then May and June.
2nd booster
The guidelines for the administration of second booster shots against COVID-19 may come out in the next two weeks, the Department of Health (DOH) said Monday night.
According to DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, they are still waiting for the recommendation of the Health Technology Assessment Council (HTAC) which is reviewing the second booster dosing for certain eligible sectors.
“We have not issued any guidelines yet…This has to go through the process of HTAC and that is what we are waiting for,” she noted in an interview with One News’ “The Chiefs.”
Vergeire added they got a commitment from HTAC that its recommendation for immunocompromised individuals will be issued within the week.
However, the DOH wanted the recommendations for all eligible recipients to be out at the same time so that “operations would be less challenging.”
Based on the amended emergency use authorization (EUA) of the COVID-19 jabs, the second booster will be administered to senior citizens, immunocompromised and frontline health care workers.
The EUA stated that all COVID-19 vaccines could be used as second booster except for Sputnik V jabs of Russian’s Gamaleya.
The official maintained that administration of second booster may start once the guidelines are out.