DOH eyes arrival of first batch of donated COVID-19 bivalent jabs by end of March

The Department of Health (DOH) is expecting the bivalent COVID-19 vaccines donated by the COVAX facility and other countries to arrive by the end of March.

DOH officer in charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said that the department secured last week a commitment from the COVAX facility to donate one million doses of the second-generation vaccines targeted against the Omicron variant.

“Kapag nag-push through talaga ‘yan, by the end of March, hopefully, we expect the initial doses to arrive. Meron din tayong iba’t ibang bansa nago-offer sa atin ng donations that we are currently coordinating,” Vergeire said at a press conference.

(When that pushes through, we expect the initial doses to arrive by the end of March. We are also currently coordinating with different countries offering us donations.)

She said that one country already confirmed that they will be donating bivalent vaccines to the Philippines, and the DOH is now finalizing the delivery date for such.

“At the same time, in parallel, we are trying to explore how we can be able to procure and have these faster procurement para sa mga bakuna to supplement these donations,” Vergeire added.

Vergeire in late December said that the Food and Drug Administration had already issued an emergency use authorization for the bivalent vaccines of Moderna and Pfizer.

At present, there are 73.8 million Filipinos who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, while 21.3 million have received their booster shots

Vaccination in schools

Vergeire said that the vaccination efforts of the national government had been going well in several schools, with more children now fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

She said that 112.5% of the target 12 to 17 years old; and 49.9% of the target 5 to 11 years old have been fully vaccinated.

This constituted more than 10 million adolescents, and 5.4 million children, based on recent data by DOH.

“We are having this good accomplishment of vaccinations among our school children,” Vergeire said.

She added that some 3,424 schools nationwide have COVID-19 vaccination sites in place or are conducting inoculation drives. —NB, GMA Integrated News