The City Government of Manila has received on Monday a set of Cold Chain Equipment from the Government of Japan, through the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) during a handover ceremony at the Manila City Hall.
The Department of Health (DOH) said the enhancement of the Philippine government’s cold chain capacity will enable the country to further extend and reach the national COVID-19 vaccination program goals, which has so far allowed to fully inoculate almost more than 40 million Filipinos nationwide, and minimize COVID-19 impact to the health care system.
Among the equipment donated to the City of Manila were solar-powered and ice-lined refrigerators.
The equipment is expected to help the city government in its vaccination efforts.
Acting City Health Officer Dr. Arnold Pangan said the Manila Health Department (MHD) has already achieved more than a 100-percent coverage on the vaccination against COVID-19.
For pediatric COVID-19 vaccination, the City of Manila has conducted a pilot inoculation of children ages 12-17 years old in schools.
For the past two weeks, the MHD has been doing vaccination in the six district hospitals of Manila and various malls in the city, Dr. Pangan said.
“Our target is around 170,000 children. As of November 14, Manila has achieved an inoculation of more than 52,000 for our COVID-19 pediatric cases,” Pangan said.
The donated equipment was received by Vice Mayor Honey Lacuna-Pangan.
Lacuna-Pangan said that, despite of experiencing the economic epicycle disruption caused by the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019, the Japan government “still manages to share their concern and compassion to other countries such as the Philippines.”
“And so, we in the City of Manila, under the dynamic stewardship of the local chief executive Mayor Francisco ‘Isko Moreno’ Domagoso, would like to extend our deepest appreciation to the government of Japan, through UNICEF Philippines, for the Cold Chain Equipment that
you are giving us for the vaccines,” Lacuna-Pangan said.
