THE Bacolod City Emergency Operations Center-Task Force (EOC-TF) is eying to administer all coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccines that will expire by the end of April, an official said.
Dr. Chris Sorongon, deputy for medical data and analysis of EOC-TF, said Tuesday, April 5, that the city's mobile vaccination against Covid-19 is already in the barangays to inoculate those who want to have their second dose and booster shots.
City Health Office (CHO) records showed that a total of 20,000 of AstraZeneca vaccines will expire this month and another 40,000 doses in May and 10,000 doses in June this year.
"Before its expiration date, we will use these vaccines and we are expecting that we already administered these vaccines before the month ends," Sorongon said.
He said they still have enough time to administer these vaccines to the city residents.
The doctor added that they are now concentrating on booster shots and inoculation of children aged five to 11 years old and 12 to 17 years old.
Sorongon noted that about 131 percent of the target population of Bacolod City were already fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
Em Ang, executive director of the EOC-TF, earlier said that they are waiting for the emergency use authorization (EUA) for the extension of expiration date of the Covid-19 vaccines earlier delivered to the city.
"When they sent [these vaccines] to us, it's near expiry and right now we only administered 831 doses of vaccines per day in all vaccination centers. Before, we averaged 12,000 doses to 15,000 in a day," she said.
She added that they cannot return or distribute the vaccines to other local government units without a directive from the Department of Health (DOH).
Sorongon also said that in order to intensify its education and information campaign against Covid-19, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has deployed 23 beneficiaries of its Government Internship Program (GIP) as data encoders of the city's vaccination team.
These additional manpower will augment the city's vaccination information management system, he said, adding that they will work on encoding the data on VaxCertPH, the national government's portal for the issuance of uniform digital vaccination certificates that can be used as a vaccine passport for international and local travels.