March 04, 2021 DEPARTMENT of Health (DOH) Secretary Francisco Duque III on Thursday, March 4, 2021, said they will look into the vaccination of government officials using the Sinovac vaccine against coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
Duque said the prioritization framework, which gives healthcare workers first priority in getting vaccinated, should be followed given the limited supply of vaccines.
He said the estimated 1.7 million healthcare workers in the country need a total of 3.4 million doses. The 600,000 doses of CoronaVac, the vaccine developed by Sinovac, can vaccinate only about 17 percent.
President Rodrigo Duterte had ordered vaccine czar and National Task Force (NTF) Against Covid-19 chief implementer Carlito Galvez Jr., NTF deputy chief implementer Vince Dizon and Metro Manila Development Authority chairman Benhur Abalos to get inoculated in a bid to boost confidence in the vaccine.
SunStar WHO warns against deviating from prioritization framework
MANILA. Dr. Gerardo Legaspi, director of the UP Philippine General Hospital, is the first to receive the Sinovac vaccine on March 1, 2021. (File)
+ March 04, 2021 FAILURE to follow the prioritization framework in the implementation of the vaccination program against coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) could put vaccine shipments from the Covax facility at risk, a World Health Organization (WHO) official said on Thursday, March 4, 2021.
Under prioritization roadmap of the WHO, the first to receive the vaccines should be the healthcare workers, elderly and people with comorbidities.
“If we want to ensure that we continue to access the vaccines from the Covax facility, we need to demonstrate that we can follow this prioritization,” WHO country representative Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinghe said in a virtual briefing.