Duque leads AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine rollout at Cardinal Santos Medical Center

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III on Saturday led the rollout of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at the Cardinal Santos Medical Center (CSMC) in San Juan City.

Duque himself injected the vaccine on 69-year-old CSMC senior vice president and chief medical officer Dr. Zenaida Javier-Uy, the first to receive the AstraZeneca vaccination at the hospital, according to a report by Jhomer Apresto on Super Radyo DZBB.

Uy said she has so far felt no side effects after her inoculation.

The CSMC received around 500 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine on Saturday early morning, aside from the initial 1,300 doses of Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines.

CSMC spokesperson Corinne Ilagan said the hospital has more than 2,000 employees, and 1,900 of them were scheduled to be vaccinated in eight days.

More than 400 healthcare workers have so far received COVID-19 vaccination at the hospital.

While expressing that he also wants to get vaccinated, Duque said healthcare workers and frontliners should receive the vaccines first.

A total of 487,200 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and British-Swedish pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca arrived in the Philippines on Thursday from the COVAX facility.

Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. on Saturday said the remaining 38,400 doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine donated by the COVAX facility will arrive at around 7 p.m. on Sunday, March 7. —Jamil Santos/KG, GMA News