The Department of Health said on Tuesday, Nov. 30 that the Philippines achieved the fifth spot among the countries with the highest single-day vaccination worldwide.
In a Laging Handa press briefing, Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje, Chairperson of the National COVID-19 Operations Center disclosed that the country administered a total of 2,554,023 doses on the first day of the National Vaccination Program on Monday. Nov. 29.
She added that this is 2.5 times higher than the country's weekly average of 1 million jabs. With this, the country placed fifth among other countries with the highest single-day vaccination worldwide next to China with 22 million; India with 10 million; United States with 3.48 million and Brazil with 2.6 million.
Region IV-A recorded the highest number of vaccinations with 366,711. It was followed by Region III with 297,316; Region VI with 192,216; Region VII with 186,834; and Region V with 165,259. There has been a delay in the transmission of reports according to Cabotaje because healthcare workers wanted to finish vaccinating everyone first before submitting their data.
Cabotaje also reported that some of the major problems that they encountered was there were some who lined up for walk-in vaccinations but were not allowed.
"Dapat po walang uuwi na nakapila na hindi mababakunahan (There should be no one who line up that will go home unvaccinated)," she said.
There were also some Local Government Units (LGUs) who did not accommodate pediatric vaccinations and it was only made available in some vaccination sites. However, she stated that there is enough supply of vaccines for pediatric vaccination.
She noted that one "good" problem was that there was an overwhelming response to the national vaccination program.
Cabotaje said that they will provide the data on the number of jabs on a daily basis to give the healthcare workers time to accomplish inoculation. Their next update will be on Wednesday, Dec. 1, the last day of the national vaccination program.