The Philippines has already administered coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines to over 600,000 children aged five to 11-years-old, the National Vaccination Operations Center (NVOC) reported.
"Ang latest data natin 663,384 ang nabakunahan nating five to 11 (Our latest data shows that 663,384 children aged five to 11 are now vaccinated)," said NVOC Chief and Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje on Saturday, Feb. 26.
The government started its implementation of COVID-19 vaccination for children aged five to 11-years-old last Feb. 7.
The DOH earlier said it is targeting to inoculate more than 15 million children under this age group.
Cabotaje assured that the country has vaccine supply reserved for the second dose for these children.
She also reported that the additional supply of Pfzer vaccines will arrive in March. The said supply was supposed to be delivered this month.
“Hindi naman maaapektuhan iyong kanilang second dose kasi sinabi natin sa ating mga nagbabakuna na mag-reserve sila ng second dose nila para siguradong may isi-second dose (Their second dose will not be affected because we instructed our vaccinators to reserve vaccines to make sure they will received that),” she said.
“So, iyong mga medyo gumamit ng kanilang second dose kasi nga maraming demands, so aayusin nila para iyong pagdating ng bakuna next month first week of March ay mapalitan kaagad (So, those who use their reserved second dose because there are a lot of demands---that will be replaced immediately after the arrival of vaccine supply scheduled first week next month),” she added.
“But our general direction is to reserve the second doses for the first dose para hindi tayo magkaroon ng problema (so that we will not encounter problems),” she furthered.