MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte stressed the significance of increasing vaccination rates in different local government units (LGUs) in attempt to reach the country’s goal to fully vaccinate at least 50 million Filipinos by December of this year to attain population protection.
“We cannot reach this target if we will plateau at 400 or 500 [thousand] daily jabs,” Duterte said in his regular Talk to the People aired on Monday night.
According to Duterte, a continuous immunization program at the local level can immensely help to accelerate the Covid-19 vaccination program across the country.
He stated that the immunization program should be expanded to include even the most remote communities.
“At ‘yung mga bakuna na nasa umabot na doon sa pinakamalayong lugar (The vaccines may reach those farthest areas) and the provincial, city and municipal health officials will take over,” Duterte said. “Ang concern ko lang naman (my only concern) is that–they will be able to preserve the integrity of the vaccines.”
He said that the vaccines that would be used in these remote places must not expire and be free of contamination.
Duterte urged LGUs to boost their vaccination programs.
“I urged LGUs to come up with a more systematic and efficient way of finding out of who among your constituents have not yet been vaccinated. Please do everything to convince them to get vaccinated,” he said, as he noted a stable vaccine supply in the country.
Duterte also lauded the successful pilot run of the pediatric vaccination.
He added that medical students could be able to assist in expanding immunization.
“I’ve heard somewhere that itong mga (these) nursing students, mga (those) seniors, I think–they will be mobilized para magtulong sa pagbabakuna (to help in vaccination),” he said.
As of October 24, the Philippines has received a total of 97,678,340 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines.
Of the total vaccines, 55,715,693 doses were already administered, with 30,003,713 given as first doses and 25,711,980 as second doses, including the single-dose Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccine.
