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House-to-house COVID-19 inoculation to speed up vaccine rollout – NTF exec
House-to-house COVID-19 inoculation to speed up vaccine rollout – NTF exec
To speed up the rollout of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines, local government units (LGUs) were urged by the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19 to be creative in their inoculation strategies, including the conduct of house-to-house vaccination.
Assistant Secretary Wilben Mayor, head of NTF's sub-task group on current operations, made the recommendation during the arrival of 973,440 doses of government-procured Pfizer vaccine on Friday night, Oct. 29.
“’Yong mga house-to-house na mga strategy ng ating local governments ay mga innovation nila iyon so kanya kanya silang creativity (The house-to-house strategy of our local governments are their innovation so it depends on their creativity). Anything that would facilitate and expedite the inoculation is encouraged to all LGUs,” Mayor told reporters at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3.
Mayor said some LGUs have already been practicing house-to-house inoculation to accommodate individuals who could not go to the vaccination sites, particularly the senior citizens.
“Ang mga vaccinators ang pumupunta na sa mga bahay-bahay. Alam naman natin ang mga seniors hindi makakapunta sa lugar ng mga inoculation so sila na mismo ang pumupunta (The vaccinators are the ones going to the houses. We know that some of the seniors could not go to the inoculation sites so they are the ones going to them),” he said.
The idea of bringing the life-saving jabs directly to the recipients’ houses were pitched as President Duterte directed local chief executives to ramp up the national vaccination program now that the country has enough supply of COVID-19 vaccines.
“We have so many supplies of vaccines coming in kaya kailangan mapush natin ‘yon (that’s why we need to push for the ),” Mayor said.
The vaccine supply has already reached 101,501,680 doses with the recent delivery of Pfizer jabs.
Out of the supply, the government has administered 58,879,887 doses as of Friday which means that around 43 million doses were stored in warehouses.
Some of the fresh supply of Pfizer vaccines will be used for the inoculation of children and adolescents aged 12 to 17, Mayor said, which has already been expanded nationwide.
The vaccination of the pediatric sector kicked off last Oct. 15 in Metro Manila and among those prioritized were kids and teens with comorbidities.
“By November 3, magsisimula na tayo sa inoculation ng adolescents kasama ang Pfizer (We will start the ] inoculation of adolescents using the Pfizer vaccine),” Mayor said.