DAVAO CITY - To allay the public's fears of getting vaccinated, the OIC-medical center chief of the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) has volunteered to be the first one to get vaccinated with the Covid-19 Vaccine CoronaVac or SINOVAC this coming Friday, Mar. 5.
“I think the best way to convince them , to promote this vaccine is you should be vaccinated. As the leader of SPMC, I think it’s right that I will be the one to be vaccinated first,” said Dr. Ricardo Audan, OIC-Medical Center Chief II of the SPMC in a statement released Tuesday, Mar. 2.
The medical center is also the city's primary hospital facility.
The city government said Tuesday that the vaccination against coronavirus disease will commence on Mar. 5, three days after the arrival of 12,000 vials of Covid-19 Vaccine CoronaVac or SINOVAC from Manila.
Audan added that around 150 to 200 doctors, nurses, and aides of the SPMC are to be vaccinated on the day of the vaccination rollout. He said they are among the 5,900 SPMC personnel targeted for vaccination for two weeks. The second dose will be administered to the same recipients after 28 days.
The medical frontliners will get the first anti-Covid jabs.
Dr. Ashley Lopez, Focal Person of the Davao City Covid-19 Task Force, said that front liners in tertiary private hospitals will be next in line for the allocation of the first batch of SINOVAC doses.
“Didto na padulong sa private hospitals. Kung naa pay mga sobra pa gyud, kung ma cover na nato ang mga private hospitals then atoang ihatag sa mga TTMFs (The private hospitals are next. After we cover the private hospitals and if there are remaining vaccines then we give it to our TTMFs),” he said.
Based on the February 8 master list of the Davao City Health Office, some 16,677 medical frontline workers are eligible to be vaccinated. Lopez also said that Davao City will follow the prioritization of vaccination according to standards set by the DOH and the World Health Organization.
The first batch of SINOVAC vaccines arrived in Davao from Manila on Tuesday. It was immediately transported to the storage facility of the Department of Health (DOH) XI.
The city government said to achieve herd immunity "1.2 million of the 1.8 million population of Davao City are needed to be vaccinated."