GENERAL SANTOS CITY – The Department of Health (DOH) 12 (Soccsksargen) is working with rural health units (RHUs) to further increase the utilization rate in the ongoing mass vaccination against the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
Arjohn Gangoso, DOH-12 health education and promotion officer, said Tuesday the RHUs have intensified their campaigns in local communities to encourage and enlist more eligible individuals to avail of the vaccines.
He cited the remaining residents under priority groups A1 (front-line health care workers), A2 (senior citizens), and A3 (persons with comorbidities).
As of June 28, he said a total of 147,975 individuals under the three categories have received their first dose of the vaccines.
Gangoso said 66,407 persons have been fully vaccinated or have completed the required two doses using AstraZeneca and Sinovac’s CoronaVac vaccines.
This translates to a total of 214,382 vaccine doses administered to the target recipients since the region-wide inoculation began on March 7 for a utilization rate of more than 74 percent.
The DOH-12 has already distributed 288,020 doses of AstraZeneca and CoronaVac across the region’s four provinces and five cities.
Last week, the region received about 20,500 doses of CoronaVac to facilitate the inoculation of the remaining eligible individuals under priority groups A1, A2, and A3.
Gangoso said they also expanded the vaccination to cover outbound overseas Filipino workers, seafarers, third- and fourth-year medical students, and funeral service workers, all included in the A1 priority group.
He said they were expecting the arrival in the coming days of additional vaccines to further increase their coverage.
“We’re also continually preparing for the vaccination of the eligible essential private and government workers and we will do that once the vaccines are available,” he told reporters.
Gangoso said the master-listing of the A4 recipients is ongoing but some RHUs have submitted their initial data.
He assured that the vaccination activities would not stop so long as the vaccines are available until the area reaches the population protection level.
Source: Philippines News Agency
