Roxan Siason, a nurse at the Department of Health in Sarangani Province, extracts the first dose of Sinovac Covid19 vaccine to be administered to health care workers and medical front liners. A total of 338 health workers and medical front liners in the province have been targeted for inoculation on Sunday, March 7, but 11 of them sought deferment. PHOTO BY ROMMEL REBOLLIDO
MANILA, Philippines — A total of 15,662 healthcare workers have been afflicted with COVID-19 since the new coronavirus reached the Philippine shores in 2020, the Department of Health (DOH) said Friday.
Data from the DOH showed that of this number, some 533 health workers still have active cases, while 15,047 have recovered. On the other hand, 82 of them have died.
The health department said the total tally represents 2.26 percent of the total 693,048 COVID-19 cases in the country as of Thursday.
According to DOH, more health workers have been infected with the new coronavirus in March as the country faced fresh surge of infections.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the number of healthcare workers who had COVID-19 began to decrease in November last year until the new cases started to increase again this March.
“Ngayon pong Marso, nag-increase na po siya ulit (But in March, it increased again). From 474 infections in February, we now have a total of 684 from March 1 to March 25,” she said in an online press briefing.
Vergeire said the increase of confirmed cases among healthcare workers is expected with the recent surge of infections following the detection of more transmissible SARS-CoV-2 variants.
She again appealed to the public to follow the priority list for vaccination given these figures.
“Kaya nga po inuulit natin, ibigay muna natin ang mga bakuna sa ating (That’s why we are appealing to give the vaccines first to) healthcare workers because they are the ones primarily affected and the ones most exposed among all of us here in the population,” said Vergeire.
The country has so far recorded a total of 693,048 COVID-19 cases as of Thursday. Of the total, 99,891 are active cases, 580,062 are recoveries, and 13,095 are deaths.
As of March 23, the country has administered 508,332 doses of COVID-19 vaccines as first shots from the 1,525,600 donated doses of Sinovac and AstraZeneca vaccines.