DOH exec mulls including household members of seniors in vaccine priority list

Household members of senior citizens could be included in the priority sector for the country's inoculation program against COVID-19 as authorities scramble to find more supplies of vaccines, an official of the Department of Health (DOH) said Sunday.

Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said they are crafting guidelines for this policy amid the increasing number of fully vaccinated seniors all over the country, which has reached 43%.

"We are coming up with another strategy — 'yung A2 (senior citizens) plus one. Ibig sabihin, senior citizen, dinala ng household member, pati ang household member babakunahan," Cabotaje, also chairwoman of National Vaccine Operations Center (NVOC), said over Dobol B TV.

(The A2 plus one strategy means not only the senior citizen will be vaccinated but also the household member who brought him or her to the inoculation site.)

Cabotaje added that the household member is preferably someone who is taking care of the senior citizen.

Even selected A3 (people with comorbidity) members and their caretakers may also be inoculated, Cabotaje added.

As of August 12, the National Task Force against COVID-19 reported that 12,282,006 Filipinos or 17.19% of the country’s eligible target population have completed their vaccination, the National Task Force Against COVID-19 said on Friday. The eligible target population means those aged above 18 years old. 

Meanwhile, 26,677,269 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered out of the 41,515,350 doses of COVID-19 vaccines secured from several manufacturers. 

The Philippines has recorded 1,727,231 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Saturday, with 14,249 new infections, 1,598,314 recoveries and 30,070 fatalities. —KG, GMA News