AN ADDITIONAL 7,480 vials of Sinovac vaccines arrived in Bacolod City from the Department of Health (DOH) Friday, April 30, 2021.

Dr. Chris Sorongon, deputy for medical data and analysis of Emergency Operations Center (EOC), said the 7,480 vials of Sinovac vaccines were allocated by the national government to Bacolod City.

He said the vaccines were brought to the cold storage at the Bacolod Government Center and will be used for medical frontliners and senior citizens.

He added they will continue the vaccination on Monday at the Bacolod Government Center.

Sorongon noted since April 18, they vaccinated more than 6,000 medical frontliners assigned at various hospitals in the city.

Of the number, about 4,000 medical frontliners already received their second doses of Sinovac and AstraZeneca vaccines.

Since last week, more than 800 senior citizens and city officials in Bacolod City have already received their first doses of Sinovac vaccines against coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in the city.

The senior citizens will receive their second doses of Sinovac vaccines after three weeks.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) earlier approved the use of CoronaVac, the vaccine manufactured by Sinovac, among senior citizens 60 years old and above.

On April 7, the National Covid-19 Vaccination Operations Center issued an advisory on the voluntary vaccination of CoronaVac among senior citizens.

Sorongon urged Bacolondons to avail of Covid-19 vaccines and register within their respective barangays so that they will be included in the master lists once the city’s 650,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine will arrive in the city in July or August.

Sorongon said due to a surge in Covid-19 cases in the city, there is a possibility that Bacolod will be hit by the second wave of Covid-19 cases.

“For how many months that we have single-digit of Covid-19 cases and it surged from March 16 until this month,” he said.

As of April 29, Bacolod City had a total of 7,431 Covid-19 cases. Of the number, 6,407 patients already recovered, 817 were active cases and 207 were deaths.

The EOC along with the City Health Office will also send a specimen to the Philippine Genome Center to determine if there was a new variant of Covid-19 in the city.