ILOILO CITY – The local government of this city will acquire at least 600,000 doses of vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), and not just 50,000 doses as earlier announced by Mayor Jerry Treñas.
The city mayor clarified this after signing a multilateral agreement with British pharmaceutical firm AztraZeneca and the national government Sunday for procurement of the COVID-19 vaccines once it becomes available in the country.
While Treñas earlier announced that all city residents will be vaccinated for free, the mayor withdrew his earlier statement, and said the AztraZeneca AZD1222 vaccines that will be purchased would only be good for 300,000 people.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has earlier recommended that each person undergoing COVID-19 vaccination must have two doses for it to be effective.
The city government allocated at least P200 million for the procurement of the 300,000 vaccines.
However, the Iloilo City government is targeting to vaccinate at least 60 percent of the city’s population or more than 470,000.
Meanwhile, Iloilo Governor Arthur Defenor Jr. also signed multilateral agreement with the national government and AztraZeneca for the vaccines. The initial 271,000 doses of vaccines will be distributed among the 42 towns and component city of Passi.