COVID-19 IMMUNIZATION

Philippines eyes jabbing 15M people in 3-day nat'l vax drive

Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez, Jr. said Wednesday that the government is eyeing to administer five million doses everyday during the three-day national vaccination campaign against COVID-19, set from November 29 to December 1.

Galvez said the program will be dubbed "Bayanihan, Bakunahan" and will be done on a nationwide scale.

"Our objective is to facilitate vaccination of 15 million individuals in three days. This will be like an election day [where people go to designated places but this time to get a vaccine)," he said during a taped meeting with President Rodrigo Duterte and other officials aired Wednesday morning.

"Ito rin po ang isang daan na matulungan din po natin iyong areas na medyo mahina po sa vaccination because of some challenges and logistical limitations (This is our way to help areas where the vaccination pace is yet to pick up due to logistical limitations, among other reasons)," he added.

Earlier, the government said that it aimed to administer 1 to 1.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine daily, starting November 20, to speed up the COVID-19 vaccination program. 

There are at least 29.8 million fully vaccinated Filipinos against COVID-19, so far, since the vaccination rollout started on March 1, 2021.

This figure is still nowhere near government's target of vaccinating 80% of its 109 million population by May 9, 2022. —LBG, GMA News