THE government has set the fourth National Vaccination Days from March 10 to 12, with the Department of Health (DOH) saying it would adopt the house-to-house approach as a new strategy to bring the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines closer to the population.
In a televised public briefing, Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said the event’s theme would be “March to Vaccine” because “we will bring the vaccines to the households. We will be able to enhance our house-to-house vaccination, or what we call ‘suyod’.”
Health officials reassessed the government’s rollout strategy after noting the low vaccination rate during last month’s third NVD.
They said it was apparent that people did not want to go to large vaccination sites for fear of exposure to persons infected with the virus but were asymptomatic.
Similarly, health officials also noted that many fully vaccinated individuals do not find it urgent to already get their booster shots.
“We will go to workplaces, to our healthcare workers, in ecozones, in national government agencies. We will bring booster doses there,” said the head of the National Vaccination Operations Center (NVOC).
“We will be focusing on giving boosters to our economic frontliners,” she added.
Currently, she said only one-third of the eligible individuals for booster shots have been given the additional dose.
“There are already about 36.7 million that are due for boosters. Those given booster shots, though, are at 10 million, or about one-third only,” said Cabotaje.
As for the adolescent vaccinees, she reported that about two-thirds of the targeted 12 to 17 years old are already fully jabbed.
“We started last November. Now, we are already at 66 percent fully vaccinated among adolescents. That means 8.4 out of 12 million adolescents are fully vaccinated,” said Cabotaje.
On the other hand, the DOH official said only 736,000 kids aged 5 to 11 years old have
been given COVID-19 jabs.
“We are constrained by supply issues as we only have 2.1 million doses, with the half reserved for second dose,” said Cabotaje.
‘PERFECT STORM’
In a related development, the Philippine Heart Association (PHA) urged people with heart ailments to get their booster shots against COVID-19 as soon as possible.
PHA president Dr. Gilbert Vilela said combining the two ailments is fatal.
“People with heart disease and stroke and other cardiovascular diseases are at a higher risk for serious complications versus those without the underlying condition,” said Vilela.
“Heart disease and COVID-19, when combined, it’s the perfect storm,” he said.
Vilela cited a study in the United States involving almost 133,000 COVID-19-hit individuals with heart ailments.
He said almost 25 percent of the 133,000 individuals had died.
“This is why we have been telling our patients to just hide so that their lives will be saved,” said Vilela.
