COVID hospital staff  priority in vaccination

By Joseph B.A. Marzan

The Department of Health-Western Visayas Center for Health Development (DOH-WV CHD) stated on Wednesday that it will prioritize the staff of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) dedicated hospitals once the first batch of vaccines for the region arrive.

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque on Tuesday identified the COVID-19 Referral Facilities which will receive doses of the CoronaVac vaccine against COVID-19, made by Chinese biotech company Sinovac.

A total of 600,000 CoronaVac doses were donated by the Chinese government to the national government.

Six of these facilities are located in Western Visayas and will receive a total allocation for an eligible population of 8,438.

Four of these hospitals are in Iloilo City – Western Visayas Medical Center in Mandurriao district, West Visayas State University Medical Center in Jaro district, and St. Paul’s Hospital and Iloilo Doctors Hospital in City Proper.

The other hospitals are Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital, and Dr. Pablo O. Torre Memorial Hospital, both in Bacolod City.

DOH-WV CHD Infectious Diseases Cluster Unit head Dr. Mary Jane Juanico told Aksyon Radyo Iloilo on Wednesday that the priority of distribution of vaccines will start with these six referral facilities.

This will be followed by hospitals owned and managed by local government units (LGUs) and private hospitals, which have DOH Level 3 licenses.

It will then go down to hospitals with Levels 1 and 2 licenses and private hospitals on the last rung.

Aside from these, Juanico said they did not have further details other than those already given to the public.

“We already received initial information that we have parts of the 600,000 vaccines which have arrived in the Philippines, but as of this time we still don’t know the actual doses or the actual number of recipients who are included in the deployment of vaccines, as well as the date and time of arrival,” Juanico said.

She added that employees will be treated “based on their intent, and not on whether or not they were in direct contact with COVID-19 patients”.

The DOH-WV CHD had already conducted surveys with medical frontliners to check who would wish to get vaccinated, although they did not ask preferences for specific vaccine makers.

But Juanico did not disclose the number of people they surveyed or the results of this survey.

She said that the vaccine donations were an “opportunity” for the Philippines, and the administration of vaccines was “carefully studied” by vaccine expert panels and approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The FDA has granted Emergency Use Authorization to CoronaVac, as well as two other vaccines – AZD1222 by British-Swedish pharma AstraZeneca, and BnT162b2 by German biotech company BioNTech and distributed by American drugmaker Pfizer.

“The opportunity for third-world countries, like us here in the Philippines, to get vaccines produced for 2021, maybe there is a difficulty in getting that. Whatever vaccines arrive, as long as they pass the certifications needed by our vaccine expert panel, as well as our Philippine FDA, then I think they would have studied it well with good effect for us in the Philippines,” Juanico said.

Once the vaccines arrive, these will not be given immediately, as it will depend on the patients’ consent in receiving the vaccines.

The DOH-WV CHD is also preparing a ‘Quick Substitution List’ of recipients who are not prioritized but are nonetheless amenable to receive them, “so that vaccines would not be wasted”, according to Juanico.

Consent forms will be given to recipients on the day of vaccination, and should they choose not to get the vaccines, they will be replaced by another patient on the Quick Substitution List.

The order of the list was also based on the DOH license level of the hospital as well as their type, as tertiary hospitals will go first before LGU-owned hospitals and private hospitals.