Gov’t mulls monthly national COVID-19 vaccination days

MANILA, Philippines — The government is considering holding monthly COVID-19 national vaccination drives to further ramp up inoculation in the country.

Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said the national vaccination drives may focus on a specific priority group like senior citizens as the government wants to ramp up inoculation among the elderly.

“Oo, iniisip natin ‘yung iba’t ibang strategies baka kaya kahit gawin natin buwan buwan, specific areas siguro o kaya specific targets,” she said in a Laging Handa public briefing when asked if the government is considering making the national vaccination days monthly.

(Yes, we’re thinking of various strategies, maybe we can make it monthly for specific areas or for specific targets.)

“Nakikita natin, kailangan pa natin taasan ‘yung ating mga senior citizens, baka pwede one day senior citizens na vaccination day,” Cabotaje added.

(We are seeing that we need to vaccinate more senior citizens, so maybe we can designation a national vaccination day for senior citizens only.)

The government recently held a national vaccination drive on Feb. 10 to 11, with the aim to inoculate at least five million individuals.

According to Cabotaje, as of Feb. 12, only about 1.5 million individuals were vaccinated during the drive, prompting the government to extend the initiative until Feb. 18.

“Gusto nating bigyan ng maraming pagkakataon yung ating kababayan para mabakunahan,” she said.

(We want to give more opportunities to our fellow Filipinos to get vaccinated.)

She said about 2.5 million senior citizens and over 220,000 persons with comorbidities have yet to be vaccinated.

Among the efforts that the government is doing to ramp up vaccination in these priority groups are going house-to-house so that they can reach individuals who are too weak to go to vaccination sites.

“Papalapitin natin ‘yung mga vaccination sites sa ating mga senior citizens. Gagawing mas madali para hindi sila mahirapan,” Cabotaje said.

She said about 61.4 million Filipinos are currently fully vaccinated while nine million have received their booster dose.

READ: 1.3 million get COVID-19 jabs on first 2 days of 3rd national vax drive

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