Philippines to hit 10M jabs vs. COVID-19 by next week —Dizon

The Philippines is projected to have administered 10 million doses vaccines against COVID-19 by next week, the deputy chief implementer of the government’s pandemic response said Thursday.

In a briefing with Israeli vaccination experts, Secretary Vince Dizon said some 353,000 doses were administered across the Philippines on Wednesday, the biggest recorded so far.

“[Officials have] been helping out our LGUs… to make their process more efficient and allow them to jab faster and jab more people and that has resulted in a tremendous increase in our jabbing capacity in the last two to three weeks,” he said.

“Come Monday or Tuesday next week, we will already have administered 10 million doses,” he added.

Dizon also stressed, however, that the number of doses administered is largely dependent on the vaccine supply.

The Philippines has received over 16 million doses so far, with the latest shipment coming from Chinese firm Sinovac. 

Vaccine stats

Meanwhile, Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said the country has already administered over 9.2 million doses as of June 23.

Cabotaje said 97% of the 1.6 million individuals belonging to the A1 priority group have been inoculated, 1 million of whom are already fully vaccinated. 

She added that 2 million of the 8 million targeted senior citizens and another 2 million out of some 7 million people with comorbidities have been jabbed.

Among essential workers in priority areas, 642,709 have gotten their first dose while 8,623 have been fully vaccinated. Over 110,000 indigents have also been inoculated against COVID-19.

The government aims to vaccinate 50 to 70 million individuals for a “better Christmas” this year. —LBG, GMA News