A PUBLIC health expert has encouraged senior citizens to get their coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccines as Central Visayas has not yet attained its target of 70 percent vaccination rate for people aged 60 years old and above.
"I encourage senior citizens, who are of my age group, to take the Covid-19 vaccines. The senior citizens are very susceptible if we contract Covid, and we are prone to complications," Dr. Jaime Bernadas, director of the Department of Health Central Visayas (DOH 7), told SunStar Cebu on Wednesday, May 3, 2023.
Bernadas said the vaccination rate for senior citizens in Central Visayas is steady at 62 percent, which is eight percent behind their target number.
According to the Vaccination Accomplishment report from DOH 7, as of April 22, 2023, there were only 414,242 senior citizens who have gotten the Covid-19 vaccine.
“They have continued the alert level status in some provinces because we did not reach the target of senior citizens that should have reached 70 percent,” Bernadas said.
“Only for that reason have we been upgraded to Alert Level 2. We face a problem in achieving our aim of 70 percent, at the very least for our senior citizens,” he added.
Bernadas urged the remaining members of the general public to receive the Covid-19 vaccine even though Central Visayas has already reached 89 percent of its overall target for the general population. This translates to over five million fully vaccinated people in the region.
He said there are still more than a million doses of Covid-19, a mix of Sinovac and Pfizer, in buffer stock in the region.
"Those who want to be vaccinated, whether primary vaccination or booster vaccination, just visit your rural health units (RHU)," he said.
He also said Wednesday, May 3, that the number of Covid-19 cases in the region has not significantly increased.
The DOH 7 has only been recording an average of 20 cases per day since March this year.
“The Covid-19 cases are only ranging around 10 to 30 cases per day in the past two months. We have not observed a spike in cases or cases that went more than those numbers,” Bernadas said in Cebuano.
As of Tuesday, May 2, there were 627 active Covid-19 cases in Central Visayas, of which 17 were new infections.
"We do not see an increase in our admissions because now our hospitals do not have alarming admissions due to Covid,” said Bernadas, adding that most detected Covid-19 cases are mild.
"If you contract the Covid and you are fully vaccinated, most likely you won’t reach the severe stage. You will just feel the symptoms of mild colds and cough," he added. (KJF)