CEBU CITY, Cebu, Philippines — The inoculation of senior citizens in this city was suspended on Friday after using up the over 5,000 doses of China-made CoronaVac vaccines allotted for the city’s elderly residents.
Dr. Jeffrey Ibones, officer in charge of the Cebu City health department, said they had yet to receive word from the Department of Health (DOH) when the next delivery would be made.
“The shortage of vaccine supplies remains a problem,” he said in a media interview.
As of April 22, at least 10,000 senior citizens in Cebu City have signified intent to be vaccinated against COVID-19 but only half was inoculated out of the 19,000 targeted in an online registration.
For the whole Central Visayas region (Cebu, Bohol, Siquijor and Negros Oriental), at least 572,626 senior citizens have registered for vaccination, according to Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, regional spokesperson of the DOH.
As of Friday, only 5,793 senior citizens in Central Visayas were vaccinated, or only 1.01 percent of the prelisted senior citizens in the region.