The City of Bacolod is putting in place an ultralow cold storage facility for the expected arrival of its share of Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) vaccine from the national government.
This is located alongside the cold room, where the City Health Office stores the Sinovac and AstraZeneca vaccines, beside the Government Center building.
City Administrator Em Ang, who sits as executive director of the Emergency Operations Center-Task Force (EOC-TF), said on Wednesday a joint team from the Department of Health (DOH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Western Visayas inspected the ultralow temperature (ULT) freezers and other equipment in the cold chain facility.
“Bacolod City will receive 5,850 doses of Pfizer vaccine as soon as the inspection is completed and approved,” Ang said in a Facebook post.
The facility has ULT freezers that will be used to store up to 40,000 doses of Pfizer jab at a temperature of -70 degrees to -80 degrees Celsius as well as cold chain storage for other vaccine brands with the required temperature of -25 degrees to -30 degrees Celsius.
Ang said the DOH cold chain technician and pharmacists, and the FDA regulation officers also inspected the infrastructure to ensure its capability to maintain the ambiance temperature requirement for storing of Covid-19 vaccine.
Since March, the city government has been receiving both Sinovac and AstraZeneca vaccines now totaling 75,740 doses.
As of June 22, some 54,849 doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered to residents. (PNA)
