National Task Force on COVID-19 Chief Implementer and vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., said his report to President Rodrigo R. Duterte on Monday (Jan. 10) said that aside from focusing on those priorities, the government’s other major tasks are the recruitment and hiring of dedicated vaccinators, as well as working with the local government units (LGUs) and the private sector to further increase the demand generation both for the primary and booster doses.
Galvez said the government is also eyeing to expand the vaccine emergency use authorization (EUA) for other vaccine brands in preparation for the immunization of more minors as they are already working with other vaccine brand manufacturers for the issuance of emergency use permits for children three to 11 years old.
He said the government’s main objectives this year include vaccinating 90 million Filipinos including minors aged five to 11 before the end of June, providing 72.16 million boosters to the adult population aged 18 and above, and vaccinating 12.74 million, 12-17 years old with boosters.
Other objectives include immunizing 15.56 million, five to 11 years old with boosters; and to vaccinate 11.11 million, zero to four years old with primary series.
Galvez said the vaccine formulation for children five to 11 years old might be available by the end of January.
He said the 100 million doses in the country’s inventory are enough for the remaining primary series of unvaccinated Filipinos while the 25 million are for those eligible for boosters.
Galvez however said the government still needs to buy more or less 17 million doses for this year’s boosters and about 26 million for children’s formulations.
“Based on the report of Usec. Mark Joven and the Department of Finance, we have a total of 800 million or 40 billion equivalent available for the procurement of vaccines and boosters for CY 2022 from the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, additional financing,” he said.
He said this means that with the P45 billion of unprogrammed appropriation under the National Expenditure Program (NEP), there will be P40 billion intended for vaccine procurement. The 2022 National Budget provided additional P2.79 billion to the Department of Health (DOH) for the purchase of COVID-19 boosters.
He said the last milestone for them is to finish boosting the 71.16 million by the end of third quarter and push also for the vaccination of the rest of the population to make sure that all Filipinos are protected by the vaccines.
File Photo 2021