Regions battling spike in COVID-19 infections have been allocated more vaccines, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said Thursday.
Duque identified the areas as follows: Regions 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, Caraga, and BARMM.
“We have to be sensitive to the areas experiencing a spike or a surge. So we need to redeploy. Every now and then we need to recalibrate our response,” he said in a briefing with Israeli vaccination experts.
For her part, Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said the number of additional doses per priority area ranges from 5,000 to 10,000, depending on the region’s population, number of COVID-19 cases, and vaccine inventory.
“We calibrate how much we are going to give them. Let us also consider that there is still limited supply,” she said.
The DOH earlier flagged several areas in Visayas and Mindanao over their rising number of COVID-19 infections.
Testing czar Secretary Vince Dizon said several densely populated urban centers will get a bigger share of vaccines once more supplies come in.
“Given a situation where there is scarcity of vaccines…you really need to prioritize areas [in] which the vaccines are most effectively utilized,” he said.
“These areas, based on the strategy of focus and expand, are the densest areas in the country, highly urbanized cities. Why? Because, number one, they have the highest risk of getting infection. Also, [they make] the greatest contribution to the economy,” Dizon said.
Dizon said some of these “key cities” are Iloilo, Cagayan de Oro, Bacolod, Zamboanga, Baguio, Talisay, and Minglanilla.
The Philippines has vaccinated over 6.2 million individuals as of June 20, still far from the government’s target of inoculating 50 million to 70 million people this year.
Cabotaje also denied claims that Iloilo City received fewer COVID-19 vaccines.
The city government received only 66,000 out of the 84,000 vials that DOH claimed it released, Mayor Jerry Treñas earlier said.
But the DOH said the 84,000 vials were completely delivered to Iloilo City.
“He [Treñas] just cannot account for the other supplies because these did not pass through the local government unit,” Cabotaje said.
Due to the prioritization in the country’s vaccine drive, some COVID-19 vials were directly sent to hospitals for inoculation of healthcare workers, Cabotaje said.
Meanwhile, 2 million more doses of Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines arrived in the country Thursday morning.
The shipment included the 400,000 doses purchased by the local city government of Manila.
It was the 12th batch of Sinovac vaccines delivered to the Philippines. All in all, the country has received 11 million COVID-19 vaccine doses from the Chinese pharmaceutical firm.
In total, the country has received 16.2 million doses. Aside from Sinovac, the other vaccines were from AstraZeneca, Sputnik V, Sinopharm and Pfizer-BioNTech.
Also on Thursday, medical experts from Israel shared to the government the best practices in their country’s vaccination rollout program.
The four-member Israeli delegation explained how they developed and managed their data management, knowledge on cold chain and logistics management, and expertise on the actual deployment of the vaccines.
The Israeli delegation was composed of Avi Ben Zaken, deputy director general of the Ichilov Medical Center; Dafna Segol, consultant of Healthcare Policy and Innovation; Adam Segal, logistics and operations manager of Salomon Levid & Einstein Ltd.; and Nir Balzam, Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of Israel.