Mayor seeks Sinovac doses for Iloilo City

Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas believes that it is only fair that Iloilo City will also have a share of the first batch of China’s Sinovac vaccine which arrived in the country Monday.

“If it is available to other cities, Iloilo should also be a part of that because we are also part of the country,” he said in an interview Wednesday during the city’s second vaccine simulation exercise.

The national government has officially rolled out its vaccination program on Monday with the arrival of around 600,000 CoronaVac doses donated by China.

Medical frontliners in Metro Manila were the first to receive the jabs.

Meanwhile, 7,200 doses of the Covid-19 vaccines were delivered to the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City on Tuesday.

Around 12,000 doses of Sinovac vaccinnes were also brought to Davao City’s Center for Health Development.

The vaccines will be allotted to medical frontliners in Cebu and Davao.

According to Treñas, he also contacted the national government particularly the Department of Health (DOH) to seek for 2,000 doses of Sinovac vaccines for frontliners in the metro.

“Nag-ayó man kita nga hatagan man health workers diri sa syudad but one of the undersecretaries of the DOH replied na depende pa kuno sa allocation sang national government,” he said.

Treñas said that while he sought for allocation of the Sinovac vaccines for frontliners in the metro, the vaccination will not be mandatory.

“Para sa akon kon ano ang available sa iban dapat available man di sa aton kag depende sa aton health workers kon painjection sila,” he said.

In a press conference, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said that the national government has allotted China’s Sinovac vaccine for some 8,436 individuals in Region 6.

The identified referral hospitals in the region which will receive the vaccines include Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital, Western Visayas Medical Center, St. Paul’s Hospital, West Visayas State University Medical Center, Dr. Pablo O. Torre Memorial Hospital and Iloilo Doctor’s Hospital.

Meanwhile, the mayor assured that medical frontliners are one of the city’s top priorities in its Covid-19 vaccination program with AstraZeneca vaccines arriving by July.

Treñas added that they are also planning to purchase additional doses of Covid-19 vaccines developed by Johnson & Johnson for the frontliners in Iloilo City. (ERS)