Vaccination of general public, children at-risk eyed next month

THE NATIONAL Task Force against Covid-19 (NTF) is eyeing to expand the country's vaccination program to the general public and children with comorbidities by October.  

In an interview at the Kapihan sa Manila Bay news forum on Wednesday, NTF chief implementer Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. said the government is already preparing for the expansion of the vaccine rollout to other sectors of society.

"Kasi mataas na po ang vaccination dito sa Metro Manila ang ginagawa po natin ay nagkaroon na po tayo ng equitable distribution based doon sa unvaccinated population (Because we already have high vaccination rate in Metro Manila, what we are doing is we are having an equitable distribution of jabs based on the unvaccinated population)," said Galvez, also the country’s vaccine czar.

He said administering Covid-19 jabs to healthcare workers (A1), senior citizens (A2), persons with comorbidities (A3), essential workers (A4), and indigent sector (A5) is already open nationwide.

"Nagkaroon na po kami ng pronouncement na lahat po ng bayan at saka probinsya ay pwede na pong mag-accelerate ng kanilang targeted population from A1 to A5 and we are proposing by October mag-general population na po tayo (We already had our pronouncement to all towns and provinces that they can start accelerating their vaccination of their targeted population from A1 to A5 and we are proposing to vaccinate the general population by October)," he said.

He said the country might have enough supply of vaccines next month.

"Because we believe by October, mayroon na po tayong (we will have) enough supply [of vaccines] and our volumes are nearing to saturate. That means the demand and also the supply has already been met. So kailangan mag-open up na po tayo ng additional sector para hindi ma-saturate ang ating mga vaccine (we need to open up to additional sector to prevent vaccine saturation)," he said.

Galvez assured an equitable distribution of Covid-19 jabs in various regions and provinces nationwide.

The government's primary consideration in the vaccine deployment, he said, is based on the areas' number of unvaccinated individuals from their target eligible population for the Covid-19 vaccination program. ( Lade Jean Kabagani)