Galvez sees need to increase COVID-19 vaccine booster jabs to 500,000 a day

Vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. said the government needs to ramp up the administration of COVID-19 vaccine booster shots to 500,000 jabs a day.

In the Talk to the People briefing led by President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday night, Galvez said the country needs to double its booster output in order to achieve its target of having 72.16 million Filipinos boosted against COVID-19.

He said that the current rate is a daily average of 267,900 shots. Over 4.7 million Filipinos have so far received a booster dose.

"Ito po ay medyo mababa dahil sinabay po natin ito sa pagbabakuna ng mga bata. Ang mga bata ay mahigit eight million na," Galvez said.

"Kinakailangan po maiangat to 500,000 doses kada araw," he added.

(This number is rather low because we combined the booster shot administration with the vaccination of children. More than eight million children have been vaccinated already. We need to increase our booster shots to 500,000 a day.) 

Last week, Galvez said the government plans to fully vaccinate 90 million Filipinos against COVID-19 despite hurdles in speeding up the vaccinations.

The country has so far recorded 3,242,374 total COVID-19 infections, including 2,898,507 recoveries and 52,929 deaths. — BM, GMA News