ZAMBOANGA CITY - The Department of Health (DOH) 9 (Zamboanga Peninsula) has urged senior citizens anew on Wednesday to submit themselves for vaccination against the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19). Dr. Augusto Manolo Alpichi, DOH-9 assistant director, made the call after observing that the number of fully vaccinated senior citizens has yet to reach 50 percent of the 23,488 total eligible population for the elderly here. Alpichi said they have recorded 111,557 senior citizens who were fully vaccinated since the vaccination program started in March this year. The figure represents 46.97 percent of the total eligible elderly population. "We encourage our elderly to get themselves vaccinated since there is a low turnout for the A2 priority group which has yet to reach 50 percent," he said. He noted that the senior citizens under the A2 priority group were among those who were given priority under the vaccination program since they are vulnerable to Covid-19 infection. He said 603,592 individuals representing 31.59 percent of the 1,910,400 total eligible population here have been fully vaccinated since the vaccination rolled out in the region. He said most of those who have been fully vaccinated or 230,212 vaccinees were persons with comorbidities belonging to the A3 priority. The rest of the fully vaccinated individuals are under the A4 group (workers in essential sectors) with 144,092; A2 (senior citizens), 111,557; A1 (healthcare front-liners), 53,556; A5 (indigents), 47,300; and, expanded A1 (family members of health care front-liners and out-bound Overseas Filipino Workers), 16,875. Meanwhile, Alpichi said a total of 663,341 individuals representing 34.72 percent of the 1,910,400 total eligible population have received their first dose of Covid-19 vaccines. He said the region has so far received 2,350297 doses of vaccines since immunization rolled out in the area in March this year Of the total doses, 1,075,638 are Sinovac jabs; Pfizer, 698,490; AstraZeneca, 305,849; Moderna, 127,920; Janssen,109,200; and, Gamaleya, 33,200. (PNA) }