Bicol gets additional 14K doses of Sinovac

LEGAZPI CITY –– At least 14,400 vials of China-made CoronaVac arrived at the Legazpi Domestic Airport on Thursday to inoculate more medical frontline workers in Bicol, the Department of Health (DOH) here said.

The vaccines, manufactured by the Beijing-based Sinovac Biotech Ltd., were packed in 12 boxes containing 1,200 vials per box and arrived aboard a Philippine Airlines commercial flight from Manila before noon Thursday.

They were immediately brought to the DOH storage facility in this city for inventory and distribution to Albay, Camarines Sur, Camarines Norte, Sorsogon, Catanduanes, and Masbate, said Noemi Bron, DOH Bicol public affairs chief.

Bron said the vaccines would be immediately dispatched to the six provinces to be administered within the next six days.

Under the government’s vaccination guidelines, the vaccines are meant for frontline workers in public and private hospitals, infirmaries, quarantine and isolation facilities, rural health units and offices, stand-alone facilities, clinics, and diagnostic centers, dental clinics, dialysis centers, and COVID laboratories.

Health frontline workers in jails and drug treatment and rehabilitation centers were also on the list.

The new vaccine allocation would be for the first and second doses of the medical frontliners, as follows: Masbate, with 4,600 doses; Sorsogon – 3,900; Camarines Sur with 2,660; Camarines Norte – 1,140; Albay 1,400; and Catanduanes, 400.

The region previously received 12,000 doses of CoronaVac allotted for the first and second doses of the recipients.

Bron said almost all the 21,400 targeted health frontliners in Bicol have received the first dose of either Sinovac or AstraZeneca vaccine.

LZB