Gov’t aims to reach 70k vaccinations a day in June — DOH exec

Health workers and frontliners receive their 2nd dose of the Sinovac vaccine against COVID-19 held at Marikina Elementary School covered court, Marikina City on Tuesday, May 4, 2021. Niño Jesus Orbeta/Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines — The national government is aiming to achieve an average of 70,000 COVID-19 vaccinations per day next month with the delivery of more vaccines in the country, an official of the Department of Health (DOH) said Wednesday.

Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said the national government is previously averaging 30,000 vaccinations per day but is currently reaching up to 60,000 per day.

“We hope we can reach 70,000 or higher. We would like to reach at least more than per day for the next month,” she said in a Laging Handa public briefing.

Cabotaje said 82% of 1.6 million out of the two million vaccines from the British-Swede drug firm AstraZeneca that was recently delivered to the Philippines have already been deployed to several provinces.

Meanwhile, 84,000 of the 193,050 vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech that arrived in the country on Monday have already been deployed.

“Itutuloy pa rin ibigay ito sa National Capital Region, naibigay na sa Cebu and Davao,” she said.

(This will be distributed to NCR, doses have been deployed to Cebu and Davao.)

In a separate interview, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said local government units (LGUs) in Metro Manila have committed to vaccinate 120,000 individuals a day.

This was to make sure that the two million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines will be used up before its expiration date in June and July.

JE