Another 14,400 doses of Sinovac Covid-19 vaccines (CoronaVac) arrived here Wednesday morning.

The fourth batch of CoronaVac doses was immediately brought to a storage facility in the Department of Health in Region 11 (DOH 11).

In a virtual press briefing Wednesday,
Dr. Janis Olavides, DOH-11 vaccination team leader, said the new doses would mostly cover the second jabs of health workers who previously received the vaccines.

“Of that allocation, we set aside 2,600 for the first dose of those front-liners who were not able to get their jabs. We only have 28 days to prepare for the second dose,” Olavides said.

Olavides said the national government has given the DOH-11 timelines on the arrival of the vaccines.

“The national office has provided us timelines for the arrival of vaccines in the coming months. We are waiting for the official endorsement if more vaccines are coming, but for now, this [Sinovac] is the latest that we’ve got,” she said.

She said the vaccination for the frontline health workers is still ongoing.

“We hope to vaccinate the target eligible group this week,” Olavides said.

In Davao Region, DOH-11 aims to vaccinate 77,570 front-liners. A total of 40,898 were already vaccinated, or 52.7 percent of the target eligible persons.

Olavides said that as of Tuesday (April 6), a total of 1,679 frontline workers deferred their vaccination while 153 refused to get inoculated.

“The common reason for the deferral are multiple health conditions, hypertension, pregnancy and experiencing mild symptoms, and those diagnosed with Covid-19. We are waiting for them to finish their treatment for them to get the jabs,” she added. (PNA)