All regions in the country have already fully-vaccinated more than 40 percent of their respective elderly population, the Department of Health (DOH) said on Saturday, July 2.
"As of June 29, 2022, all regions have fully-vaccinated more than 40 percent of their A2 priority group/senior citizens," the DOH said in a statement, citing data from the National Covid-19 Vaccination Operations Center (NVOC).
The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) has “the lowest coverage with only 46 percent of the target population for A2 (senior citizens) being fully vaccinated,” the DOH said.
On the other hand, Cagayan Valley and Cordillera Administrative Region “hold the highest coverage” of fully vaccinated senior citizens at 92.8 percent and 90.7 percent, respectively, the DOH said.
Based on the DOH’s Covid-19 vaccination dashboard, there are now 70.8 million Filipinos fully-vaccinated against Covid-19 as of July 1. Of the figure, 6.7 million are senior citizens.
Integration of Covid-19 vaccination with routine immunization
The NVOC is also eyeing to integrate Covid-19 vaccines with the government's routine immunization program, the DOH said.
The DOH said that this is one of the strategies that the NVOC is looking into under its new chief—Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire.
“During this transition period, the NVOC and vaccination sites will still continue with current operations in administering vaccines and boosters to the eligible population,” the DOH said.
“NVOC is also reviewing existing policies to identify possible points for revision, one of which is the integration of Covid-19 vaccines to routine immunization,” it added.
At present, the NVOC is focusing its efforts to increase uptake of Covid-19 vaccines.
“DOH and NVOC are currently focusing efforts to ramp-up the rollout of vaccines for our current priority groups through granular and localized analysis of areas with low vaccine coverage of first boosters and high numbers of unvaccinated,” the state health agency said.
“This is to ensure that strategies implemented to increase coverage are tailor fitted to best suit a given area or region,” it added.