Iloilo kicks off ‘TIMEX’ COVID vaccine simulation today

By Joseph B.A. Marzan

 

The Iloilo provincial government will activate its vaccination plan against the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) by launching its “Time in Motion” Exercise (TIMEX) vaccination simulation in Oton town today, February 19, 2021.

This is part of the province’s Covid-19 Vaccination Plan 2021-2022 (CoVac Plan 21-22), introduced by Iloilo Governor Arthur Defensor Jr. earlier this month.

In a press conference Thursday, Defensor said “TIMEX” aims to determine how long the vaccination process for each person will last.

Defensor also admitted that the province did not have any official figures as to the acceptance or hesitancy rate of the public towards Covid-19 vaccines, but he said local government units (LGUs) are encouraged to conduct their own surveys.

The Provincial Health Office’s (PHO) acting Chief, Dr. Ma. Socorro Colmenares Quiñon, told Daily Guardian that they had already started the exercises on Thursday.

The TIMEX procedure commenced with the transport of vaccines from the Department of Health-Western Visayas Center for Health Development’s (DOH-WV CHD) vaccination room going to the provincial government’s own vaccine room at the Iloilo Sports Complex Covered Gym in Iloilo City.

The provincial government also simulated the transport from its vaccine room to Oton Rural Health Unit, which Quiñon said took around 21 to 24 minutes, including the acceptance and receipt by the local government unit (LGU).

The TIMEX will be using 50 doses of pneumonia vaccines given by the DOH-WV CHD to participants who were all selected by the Oton local government.

Defensor explained that the provision of the pneumonia vaccine was also to avoid other co-morbidities which would be aggravated by Covid-19.

“For the [TIMEX], we will be using pneumonia vaccines because we are also looking at which diseases could be co-morbidities that would be made even worse by Covid-19. At least, we could decrease the severity of this when coupled with the Covid-19,” he added.

The provincial government provided the LGU with technical assistance according to Quiñon, including advising on the eligibility of the participants, the pneumonia vaccine vials, and other matters which may be significant to the whole vaccination process.

“We’ve advised them to target the eligible population who are also being targeted by the DOH, and these are the frontline health workers, senior citizens, other frontliners, and barangay health workers. They were the ones to choose,” Quiñon said in a phone interview.

She also said that today’s exercise will involve the following processes and their intended duration:

– arrival of clients at waiting area (3 to 5 minutes);

– registration (3 to 5 minutes);

– pre-vaccination counselling and final consent (5 to 10 minutes);

– screening (5 to 10 minutes);

– vaccination process (3 to 5 minutes); and

– post-vaccination monitoring (13 minutes).

Quiñon also mentioned other factors that the PHO would be looking into before, during and after the simulation exercises, such as:

– activation of operation centers and incident management teams;

– incident action plans;

– registration their eligible target clients;

– conduct of information and education campaigns;

– identification of referral hospitals in case a patient gets adverse events following immunization (AEFI);

– presence of emergency vehicles on stand-by;

– observance of minimum public health standards; and

– collection of disposal of medical wastes.

She said that the provincial government would also advise the LGUs on their performance in the simulation exercises.

“What we are looking at is their recommended process flow, if they executed it well, and if there are any modifications necessary, then we will make them for them to follow for when the real vaccination comes,” Quiñon said.

Oton will represent the 1st legislative district, and the next exercises will be conducted next week, starting with Zarraga (2nd district) on Feb. 22, Badiangan (3rd district) on Feb. 23, Dueñas (4th district) on Feb. 24, and Concepcion (5th district) on Feb. 26.