DEPARTMENT of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III on Wednesday, May 12, 2021, assured that all AstraZeneca vaccines delivered to the country will be administered before the expiry dates.
“We will make sure nothing will expire. It will all be jabbed, it will all be used for inoculating our A1 to complete the health care workers, the A2 for the senior citizens and the adults with comorbidities,” he said in a television interview.
The National Covid-19 Vaccine Operations Center said 1.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine will expire by June 30, 2021 while 525,000 others cannot be used beyond July 31 2021.
Duque said 525,600 doses will be administered as second dose while the rest will be used as first dose.
The DOH has tapped the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA), which committed to assist in the vaccination of 120,000 people a day in the National Capital Region (NCR).
“In NCR, si Chairman (Ben) Abalos has already committed we will put the lion’s share of the (AstraZeneca) at the epicenter in the NCR. They committed 120,000 vaccinees. So in 10 days, mauubos mo. That is before the expiry date,” Duque said.
“So we are mindful of the expiration. You know, this is gold. We cannot afford dilly-dallying in terms of implementing our vaccine program or plan so we are aggressively pursuing this,” he added.
Meanwhile, Duque supported the plan to build a mega vaccination facility to ramp up vaccination against coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
He said the government targets to inoculate 500,000 people a day nationwide.
The Philippines has received a total of 7,764,050 doses of Covid-19 vaccines as of May 10, consisting of Sinovac, AstraZeneca, Gamaleya (Sputnik V) and Pfizer. As of May 11, DOH said 2,539,693 doses have been administered to 2,025,038 individuals, some of whom have also received their second dose. (SunStar Philippines)