AROUND 20,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine against Covid-19 were delivered to Davao Region on Wednesday morning, March 10, 2021, a week after the first batch of vaccines arrived in the region.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine, allocated by the National Government, arrived around 7 a.m. via commercial flight at the Francisco Bangoy International Airport, also known as Davao International Airport.
This is on top of the 33,600 Sinovac CoronaVac vaccines, also allocated by the national government, delivered on March 2 and 4.
The arrival of the AstraZeneca in Davao came after nearly 500,000 doses arrived in Manila on March 4, making it the second Covid-19 vaccine to reach the Philippines after the 600,000 doses of Sinovac vaccine donated by China arrived on February 28.
The arrival of AstraZeneca is the first batch of the 4.7 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines that the Philippines is programmed to receive under the first round of Covax allocations.
The vaccines arrived earlier than expected. Davao City Covid-19 Vaccine Cluster Head Dr. Josephine Villafuerte said in an interview on Tuesday, March 9, that the initial batch of doses of AstraZeneca vaccines would arrive next week.
Department of Health-Davao Region (DOH-Davao) vaccination team leader Dr. Janis Olavides told the media that the AstraZeneca vaccines will be distributed to different hospitals throughout the region.
"For this, we can give [to] 10,000 nga mga tao (We can vaccinate 10,000 people with this)," Olavides said.
She said DOH has yet to finalize the allocation per city and municipality in Davao Region, adding that their allocations will immediately be transported to their hospitals over the weekend.
Beneficiaries of the AstraZeneca vaccines, she said, are medical healthcare workers more than 60 years old and above, and those with comorbidities since they are not qualified to receive the Sinovac vaccine.
She added that those who opted not to receive the Sinovac can avail the AstraZeneca vaccine.
"We will allocate it simultaneous[ly] para matapos na yung ating (so we could finish vaccinating our) priority [beneficiaries]," Olavides said.
Davao City Health Office (CHO) Acting Head Dr. Ashley Lopez, meanwhile, said in a radio interview on the same day that they are expecting the arrival of another batch of AstraZeneca vaccines in the city soon.
However, in terms of doses, Lopez said they have yet to get the final number considering the allocation of the vaccines to different cities and municipalities is under a "first come, first serve" basis.
He admitted that the allotted number of doses to Davao City is not enough to cover the estimated 10,000 prioritized healthcare workers.
"With the additional AstraZeneca, basin ato ni mahatag sa ato (we can allocate it to our) frontliners," Lopez said.
As of March 9, the CHO head said an estimated 2,000 medical workers at the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) were vaccinated, while nearly 600 private medical workers were already vaccinated at the Mabini Elementary School.
The vaccine rollout at SPMC started on March 5, while the rollout at Mabini commenced on March 8.
Lopez said they expect to finish their vaccine rollout within the week considering the high turnout of workers willing to be vaccinated.
After immunizing hospital workers, he said public healthcare workers such as molecular laboratory staff, temporary treatment and monitoring facilities and isolation facility staff, and community healthcare workers will be next on the priority list.
