The Muntinlupa City government has received Johnson & Johnson’s single dose Janssen COVID-19 vaccines from the national government and it will be used exclusively for senior citizens or those belonging to the A2 priority group.

The Philippines received 3.2 million doses of Janssen vaccine last week, which were donated by the US government through the COVAX Facility, an alliance aiming to ensure access of developing countries to COVID-19 vaccines. The Philippines is one of the 92 low- and middle-income countries and economies approved to access the vaccines through COVAX.

“Senior citizens who have registered with MunCoVac but have not yet been vaccinated are priority in the sending of schedules. Based on the NVOC Advisory, those eligible for the Janssen vaccine are A2 and A3 . We have decided to give priority to our senior citizens since the supply is limited and they are the sector most prone to COVID-19,” said the Muntinlupa City COVID-19 Vaccination Program (MunCoVac) team.

The country’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for Janssen on April 19, which indicated that the vaccine is intended for 18 years old and above.

“Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine is supplied as a suspension in multi-dose (5 doses) vials. The dosing regimen is a single dose of 0.5 mL administered as intramuscular injection,” according to the EUA.

As of July 20, the Muntinlupa City government has administered 257,633 vaccine doses. Of the total, 167,168 individuals have received their first vaccine dose, representing 43.33 percent of the target population of 385,725.

In addition, 90,465 individuals in Muntinlupa are now fully vaccinated after getting their second dose, or 23.5 percent of the target population.

Of the first dose recipients, 20,239 are senior citizens (A2) equivalent to 54.7 percent of the estimated target elderly population of 37,016 in Muntinlupa.

Other recipients of the first dose are 11,177 A1 (health workers), 66,849 A3 (persons with comorbidities), 58,382 A4 (essential workers), and 10,521 A5 (poor population).

By vaccine brand, of the 167,168 first dose recipients, 104,216 individuals received Sinovac Life Sciences’ CoronaVac, 32,406 got AstraZeneca, 3,879 were given Sputnik V, 4,196 had Pfizer-BioNTech and 260 were administered with Moderna.

Of the 90,465 individuals in Muntinlupa who are now fully vaccinated, 7,280 are A1, 14,683 are A2, 46,299 are A3, and 18,145 are A4. By vaccine brand, 63,495 got CoronaVac, 2,454 received AstraZeneca, 2,934 were given Sputnik V, and 21,582 received Pfizer-BioNTech.

The Muntinlupa City government also received a new batch of COVAX-donated AstraZeneca vaccines that may be used for the first dose. Based on COVAX guidelines, the vaccines will be used for A1, A2, A3, and A5.

For A4, MunCoVac said the scheduling for the first dose will resume next week. It continues to administer the second dose using CoronaVac including for those whose schedules were postponed last week.