TACLOBAN CITY — All health workers in Eastern Visayas have been inoculated against COVID-19.
Dr. Marc Steven Capungcol, head of the epidemiology and surveillance unit of the Department of Health in Eastern Visayas (DOH-8), described as “good news” the complete vaccination of all 82,047 healthcare workers in the region.
“We will further strengthen our vaccination roll-out [given that there are] several variants of concerns here in the region,” he said.
Capungcol said that out of the 447,306 senior citizens identified, 106,644 of them have already received the jabs, while 83,365 of 292,606 people with comorbidities have been inoculated.
Of those who received the vaccines against COVID-19, only 3,714 of them reported developing some adverse effects, including fever, headache, increase in blood pressure, and swelling at the injection site.
Capungcol disclosed that based on the 214 samples sent to the Philippine Genome Center for sequencing, variants of concern and under investigation were detected.
The samples detected were three Alpha cases; seven Beta cases, and seven variants under investigation.
The DOH earlier confirmed the presence of 10 Delta variants in the region.
On Thursday, August 12, the DOH reported 226 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the region’s total number of infections to 37,912. Of the number, 1,216 were active.