The Department of Health (DOH) has urged local government units (LGUs) to increase their vaccination sites so more people can be vaccinated against coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
"We are encouraging local governments to increase their vaccination sites so we can hasten the immunization of our people," Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a virtual forum Wednesday, April 21.
"This will definitely help give us that needed speed to vaccinate as many people as possible," she added.
The Health official said it would be better if the non-healthcare workers would be utilized by designating them in the screening and counseling areas.
"This will leave the nurses, doctors, pharmacists, midwives to do the actual immunization," Vergeire said.
"This is so that we can use our healthcare workers rationally because we know we have this shortage in personnel," she added.
Meanwhile, the National Task Force (NTF) against COVID-19 and the DOH said that as of April 20, 100 percent of the available doses in the country have been distributed, equating to 3,025,600.The NTF and DOH said a total of 1,562,563 doses have also been administered.
"76 percent of the 1,780,400 allocated first doses have already been administered, equating to 1,353,107 administered doses," it said in a statement.
"12 percent of the 1,780,400 allocated second doses have already been administered, equating to 209,456 administered doses," added the NTF and DOH.
It said 3,263 vaccination sites are conducting COVID-19 vaccination in various sites in 17 regions as of April 20.