At least 22,000 health workers from Eastern Visayas get anti-COVID jabs

TACLOBAN CITY –– More than 22,000 medical health workers from Eastern Visayas have received their first doses of anti-COVID vaccines.

The majority of the health workers, who received the vaccine, are from Tacloban, where 5,264 have been inoculated.

Jelyn Malibago, Department of Health (DOH) information officer in the region, said some health workers have yet to receive the vaccine.

In Leyte, 11,175 health care workers have received the vaccine, followed by Eastern Samar (3,301); Northern Samar (2,762); Samar (2,406); Southern Leyte (1,623); and Biliran (753).

The region has received 42,050 doses, 28,050 of them from Sinovac and 14,000 from AstraZeneca), Malibago said.

All the local governments in the region have received their vaccine allocations.

Malibago said that only health care workers and other identified front-liners would receive the vaccine for now.

But Mayor Allan Contado of Balangkayan town, Eastern Samar, said mayors should be allowed vaccination during this period alongside health workers.

Contado, also president of the mayors’ league in Eastern Samar, said mayors are also frontliners.

“I have nothing against your health workers or doctors. But for me, mayors should also be administered with the vaccines together with them,” he said.

“Before a patient is brought to the hospitals, they first pass [through] us, the local government units, the barangay health emergency response team, which is the first line of prevention. So if there is no preparation at the LGU level, our hospitals will be overwhelmed with patients,” Contado added.

The Department of Interior and Local Government earlier issued show-cause orders for mayors who have received the vaccines intended for health workers.

LZB