Areas outside Manila to get bulk of vaccines

MANIL: Provinces outside Metro Manila are to get the bulk of vaccines as a major component of the government’s “recalibrated strategy” to contain the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19), a top Malacanang Palace official assured.

Secretary Carlito Galvez, the vaccine czar, pointed out that since the lack of COVID-19 vaccines that has beset the country “is no longer a problem” the government can now afford to provide provinces outside Metro Manila with the much-needed vaccines for their inoculation campaigns.

“In line with our recalibrated vaccine deployment strategy,” Galvez said, “we are sending the bulk of the latest vaccine arrivals to regions and provinces beyond the NCR,” Galvez said.

NCR stands for the National Capital Region, the official name of Metro Manila composed of 15 cities and one town with a total population of close to 14 million.

As of Oct. 13, Galvez said the Philippines had a total of more than 87 million doses of vaccines either procured by or donated to the government consisting of Pfizer, Astrazeneca, J&J and Moderna from the US and the UK as well as Sinovac and Sinopharm from China and Sputnik V from Russia.

More vaccines are due to arrive later this month and in November, Galvez said, which will enable the government cope with rising demands especially from provinces outside Metro Manila to ramp up their COVID-19 inoculation programmes.

Galvez was responding to concerns raised by administration Congressman Joey Salceda of Albay province in the Bicol Region that they have one of the lowest vaccine allocations.

Salceda said that only 10 per cent of the region’s population have been vaccinated against COVID-19.

However, Galvez cited data from the National Vaccination Operation centre, which showed that as of Oct. 10 Salceda’s home province of Albay had 19,261 Sinovac doses and 24,089 Pfizer doses that remained untilized.

He added that despite the steady arrival of COVID-19 vaccines from the government Albay could only manage to administer more than 3,500 jabs a day from Oct. 3 to 9.

Nevertheless, he assured the government would increase its delivery of supplies to Albay and other Bicol provinces if the need arises.

Earlier, provincial and other local officials have complained that Metro Manila, acknowledged as the epicenter of the pandemic, had been getting “favored treatment” in the allocation of COVID vaccines.