COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Anti-COVID-19 frontliners in the Bangsamoro region were elated with the national government’s supply of 2,100 doses of Sinovac to protect them from the infectious disease, which has so far infected 584,667 in the country.
Physician Amirel Usman, acting health minister of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said Friday the vaccines are intended for health workers and essential service providers in the forefront of BARMM’s war on COVID-19.
“Our frontliners are happy with this,” he said.
Usman and physician Zul Qarneyn Abas, also a senior official of the Ministry of Health-BARMM, led the medical team that fetched from the Maguindanao Airport the vaccines that arrived from Manila, brought in by a passenger plane.
Usman said the shipment consisted of 4,200 vials of Sinovac.
The 4,200 doses are for 2,100 anti-COVID-19 frontliners in the Bangsamoro region, who shall have two jabs each.
The MOH-BARMM and the Rapid Emergency Action on Disaster Incidence, or READI contingent, are working together in pushing the anti-coronavirus containment efforts of the Bangsamoro government forward.
“This shall be the initial stage of our vaccination program in the Bangsamoro region,” Usman said Thursday.
He said the vaccines that arrived Thursday are intended for 1,400 frontliners in Maguindanao, 972 in Lanao del Sur, 287 in Basilan, 1,032 in Sulu and 518 in Tawi-Tawi.
Lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, BARMM’s local government minister, said Thursday the Bangsamoro leadership is thankful to the national government for supplying vaccines for 2,100 regional anti-COVID-19 frontliners.
“We are so thankful for this support,” Sinarimbo, also BARMM’s regional spokesperson, said.
Sinarimbo is overseeing the operation of READI that has teams of calamity and disaster response experts directly involved in BARMM’s anti-COVID-19 campaign.
A number of BARMM-READI personnel survived COVID-19 infections last year, apparently contracted while working in the field.