Iloilo City to expect 78,000 more vaccine doses soon

By Joseph B.A. Marzan

More coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines will be delivered to Iloilo City soon – 50,210 doses from the national government this week, and 28,000 from the local government’s own procurement by the end-September.

On Monday, the Department of Health-Western Visayas Center for Health Development (DOH-WV CHD) announced that 35,000 doses of Sinovac and 15,210 doses of Pfizer will be delivered by the National Vaccination Operations Center (NVOC) to the city.

The Iloilo City government on Monday also announced that 28,000 more doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine it procured earlier this year would arrive by Sept. 28.

This is the second batch of the British-made vaccine to arrive, with 21,000 in July 2021. These are part of the 600,000-dose purchased by the city government for P300-million.

The city government also allocated P114 million for 163,927 doses of the Novavax vaccine from the United States.

According to DOH-WV CHD data as of Sept. 12, the city has fully vaccinated 180,908 persons, which is 53.97 percent of the national government’s target for the city (335,172).

The city government is eyeing to reach 50 percent of its own target population (525,000), which include the 425,000 projected population of residents, and 100,000 workers who are not residents of the city.

The local government also hopes that it could reach up to 90 percent of the target by December, to combat increase in transmissions as well as the deadly Delta variant (B.1.617.2).