DAVAO CITY – The city government of Davao opened Saturday its third vaccination site at the Magallanes Elementary School as it hastened the vaccination of frontline health workers amid the emergence of more infectious variants of COVID-19.
City Health Office (CHO) acting head Dr. Ashley Lopez said that the third vaccination site caters to frontline health workers of the city government, particularly personnel of the temporary treatment and monitoring facilities, Public Safety and Security Command Center, Davao City Central 911, Rapid Action Team, Barangay Health Emergency Response Team, barangay health workers, and Barangay Nutrition Scholars.
Lopez said around 190 personnel were vaccinated on the first day of the COVID-19 vaccination rollout at the Magallanes Elementary School. The other two sites are the Southern Philippines Medical Center for its frontline health workers and A. Mabini Elementary School in Bangkal for frontline health workers in private medical institutions.
Lopez and Dr. Gene Gulanes, head of the Davao City Treatment and Rehabilitation Center for Drug Dependents, were the first to receive AstraZeneca vaccines during the ceremonial vaccination.
Mayor Sara Duterte said in her program over Davao City Disaster Radio (DCDR 87.5) that she wanted to expedite the vaccination of frontline health workers amid a potential surge due to the emergence of the highly infectious South African and UK variants in the National Capital Region and Cebu.
Department of Health Technical Advisory Group Member Dr. Anna Lisa Ong-Lim, in a media interview that was broadcast over People’s Television Network Saturday, confirmed the presence of a new COVID-19 variant originating from the Philippines called P-3.
“If we remember last week, the Philippine Genome Center actually shared some data about the two new mutations detected from among the 85 cases. When we received this information, we submitted this to global reporting system and we were waiting for them to let us know if this is unique to the Philippines or has been discovered in other countries. They’ve back to us and told us that this is a new variant,” she said.
She said there is no sufficient data to establish if the P-3 variant is more infectious and causes more severe symptoms and deaths.
Davao City has been allocated 20,000 out of 33,600 doses of Sinovac and 3,000 out of the 20,000 doses of AstraZeneca that the government set aside for Davao region, according to Lopez.
The city targets to inoculate around 1.2 million people to achieve herd immunity.