About 3,135 health workers in two hospitals in Bacolod City will be the first recipients of the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines that are expected to arrive tomorrow or Friday, a Department of Health official said today, March 3.
Dr. Jane Juanico, head of the DOH Infectious Disease Section in Western Visayas, said 3,200 vials of the Sinovac vaccines will arrive for the health workers of the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital and Riverside Medical Center.
Only the health frontliners of the two hospitals will be the initial recipients of the vaccines, none has been allocated for the rest of Negros Occidental yet, she said.
“Our order of prioritization is our COVID referral facilities, specifically level 3 DOH, LGU and private hospitals,” Juanico said.
The vaccination is not mandatory, if health frontliners refuse to be vaccinated now it is without prejudice to their deciding to have the vaccine later, she said.
If there are excess vaccines they will be used for persons on the local government’s quick substitution list, she said.
Dr. Chris Sorongon, Bacolod Emergency Operations Center Task Force deputy for medical and data analysis, said they were informed by the DOH that the vaccines will arrive tomorrow or Friday and the vaccination date will be on Sunday.
The DOH had identified 8,438 health frontliners in six Western Visayas hospitals up for vaccination.
The Bacolod hospitals are the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital with 1,642 health frontliners and Riverside Medical Center with 1,493, he said.
The four other hospitals in Iloilo are the Western Visayas Medical Center with 2,224 frontliners, St. Paul’s Hospital – 1,500, Western Visayas State University Medical Center- 1,153, and Iloilo Doctor’s Hospital – 426.
The DOH said 17,400 doses have been allocated for Western Visayas, although the number required is only 16,876.
Meanwhile, The Philippines is scheduled to receive 487,000 AstraZeneca vaccines tomorrow, Malacañang announced today.
It is not known how soon the AstraZeneca vaccines will arrive in Negros Occidental and Bacolod City.*