Wanted: 160K to help in 3-day vax drive

FILE PHOTO Vaccination drive in Malabon kicks off with Sinovac’s vaccine inoculated on health care workers. Image from the Facebook of Malabon Mayor Lenlen Oreta

MANILA, Philippines — Some 160,000 volunteer health-care workers are needed for the three-day national COVID-19 vaccination drive set from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1, according to the Department of Health (DOH).

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire called on health-care workers who will form some 30,000 vaccination teams to be deployed across the country for the campaign.

“This is our projection based on our target number of people to be vaccinated … we need about 30,000 vaccination teams. A vaccination team would comprise [of] about five to six individuals. So that’s around 160,000 people,” she told reporters.

Vergeire said the volunteers may serve as health screeners, vaccinators, postvaccination monitors, health educators, registration staff, encoders and data consolidators.

“We call on our medical societies, medical schools, nursing schools and other health-care worker schools if they can help us with this event,” she said.

Those interested may register at bit.ly/3Cskjwg.

No additional holidays

Meanwhile, Interior Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya urged those still unvaccinated to register for the three-day drive.

He said local governments would be given targets on the number of doses they should administer, the teams they should deploy and the vaccination sites to be set up.

Schools would also be used as inoculation hubs, he said.

The government has also tapped the military and other uniformed services to help in the vaccination drive.

Acting presidential spokesperson Karlo Nograles on Friday said there will be no additional holidays when the government holds the three-day national vaccination drive.

Nov. 29 and Dec. 1 will be special working days while Nov. 30, Andres Bonifacio Day, is a regular holiday.

Vergeire also reiterated that for now only health-care workers are eligible to receive COVID-19 booster shots.

But she said the DOH all- experts group was already drafting guidelines for the use of booster shots on priority groups A2 (senior citizens) and A3 (people with comorbidities) soon.

Of the 1.6 million total health-care workers, the DOH said about 600,000 are eligible to get booster shots in November.

Vergeire said they had so far reached 2,488 health-care workers on the first day of COVID-19 booster inoculation.