CHIEF COVID frontliner Mayor Beng Climaco has assured the public that the local government will only use vaccines that are proven safe and effective against the spread of the deadly coronavirus disease.
Climaco, head of the local task force on Covid response, said the City Health Office (CHO) in coordination with the Department of Health is now preparing plans for the implementation of the mass vaccination program.
She said the preparation plans
include the master list of target individuals to take the first batch of the inoculation,
the operation center, storage facilities and the vaccination action plan and information
campaign to make people aware of the health benefits and protection they will
get from the Covid vaccines.
The local government’s vaccination program, Climaco
said, will prioritize healthcare workers, essential and other frontline
service providers, and vulnerable populations such as the elderly and
poor.
The CHO is also setting up mechanisms
for the proper storage of 410,000 doses of vaccines, according
to the mayor, who recently signed a $2 million (or roughly P100 million) deal
with the British-Swedish
multinational pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.
The
agreement with AstraZeneca is based on the approved authorization of the City
Council. The local government’s vaccination program will cover 694,696
residents or 70% of the projected 2021 population of 992,423 inhabitants.
The initial P200 million for the
purchase of the vaccines are included in the P4.38-billion 2021 Executive
Budget of the local government, according to Climaco, who is also a member of
the Committee on Vaccine Availment of the League of Cities of the Philippines.
Climaco said the local government
will allocate P100 million more for additional Covid vaccines following talks
with US-based Johnson & Johnson. She also thanked Davao City Mayor Sara
Duterte for including Zamboanga in the talks.
“The City Government will use the remaining P100 million for other vaccine brands as we just recently met with US-based Johnson & Johnson among others. Again, thank you to Mayor Sara Duterte for inviting Zamboanga City in her discussions with Janssen,” she said.
Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have also their own Covid vaccines and so are Russia with its Sputnik and China’s Sinovac and Sinopharm. (Zamboanga Post)
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