SOME 419,000 Negrense have already been fully vaccinated against coronavirus disease (Covid-19) as of yesterday, October 26, Provincial Administrator Atty. Rayfrando Diaz II.

But Diaz said the figure is still way below the 1.8 million target population for vaccination in the province.

That is why various local government units in the province are working double time on its Covid-19 vaccination programs, he said.

Despite being short of the target population for vaccination, Diaz said Negros Occidental is second in Western Visayas in terms of the number of fully vaccinated individuals.

Diaz made the statement amid reports that the province has the most number of unvaccinated persons in the region against Covid-19 based on the data from the Department of Health-Western Visayas Center for Health Development.

“We have to contextualize unvaccinated, it depends on the target which is 1.8 million for Negros Occidental. This is greater than all other provinces,” he said, adding that “naturally, our individuals left unvaccinated is also greater (as) we still need to vaccinate 1.4 million individuals.”

The official further explained that the reason why the province is only at number two in terms of the number of fully vaccinated individuals is because the vaccines only arrived lately.

“It’s only during the last three weeks that several vaccines of different brands arrived in the province,” Diaz lamented.

“Our local government units are taking time to utilize the vaccines released to the province by the national government so that we could request for additional vaccines until we will vaccinate all the 1.8 million at the soonest time possible,” he added.

In Negros Occidental alone, cities of Silay, Victorias, Talisay and Cadiz are topping the list in terms of vaccination program as utilization of vaccines in these areas are high.

While in areas with low utilization and vaccine acceptance, lower supplies were also given to them, Diaz said.

“We are catching up because vaccine supplies are arriving,” he assured.*