Speaker Lord Allan Velasco. Photo from the Office of the Speaker, House of Representatives
MANILA, Philippines — House Speaker Lord Allan Velasco on Monday said that the decision to allow medical and nursing students to volunteer in administering vaccines will provide a “major boost” in the government’s vaccination program.
Velasco said this in a statement after the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) announced that post-graduate and undergraduate interns, clinical clerks and fourth-year medicine and nursing students can now become vaccinators and participate in the government’s COVID-19 vaccination program.
According to Velasco this development “provides a major boost to the government’s critical public health mission of inoculating 90 percent of the population against the deadly coronavirus.”
“By tapping medical and nursing students in the vaccination program, the government will rapidly expand access to COVID-19 vaccines, which is crucial to reaching the herd immunity threshold we need to return to normal life,” Velasco said.
Under a joint memorandum signed by CHED and the Department of Health, medical and nursing students can volunteer as health screeners, vaccinators, and pre/post vaccination monitoring personnel under the supervision of licensed physicians and nurses.
Meanwhile, the country is set to undergo a massive three-day vaccination drive on Nov. 29 to Dec. 1, coinciding with the commemoration of Bonifacio Day on Nov. 30.
The government aims to inoculate 15 million individuals against COVID-19 in this program.
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