The Department of Health in Northern Mindanao (DOH-10) received Wednesday part of the PHP10 million worth of vaccine storage and cards donated by the Latter-Day Saints Charities (LDSC) nationwide.

During a turnover ceremony, Dr. Jose Llacuna Jr., DOH-10 director, received four cold storage transport boxes and 30,000 vaccine cards for the region.

Llacuna said the storage boxes are not for all Covid-19 vaccine brands, but they will be used in other immunization programs as stipulated in the deed of donation between DOH and LDSC.

“There are two (Covid-19) vaccines that cannot be stored here because they need negative 20 to negative 40 centigrade. So, we are going to use it for the routine immunization,” he said, referring to routine immunizations such as measles and polio vaccines.

Ronald Aban, manager of the welfare and self-reliance services of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, said the church helps the government in DOH’s National Immunization Program (NIP).

He said the goal of the NIP is to vaccinate 1.5 million children.

Aban said LDSC has made available USD200,000 or PHP10 million for the NIP, and the DOH has chosen to allocate these funds for cold storage vaccine transport boxes equivalent to 68 sets, and vaccine cards of around 670,000 sets.

“We have delivered these donations to 17 regions (offices), the recent one was in Davao,” he said.

The LDSC clarified some regions have more than one DOH facility or office.

Edwin Sacay, LDS-Cagayan de Oro Stake president, said LDSC has a unique support structure that has access to its church networks which includes funding and local volunteer support.

“More than one million workdays of labor are contributed each year by volunteers in support of welfare initiatives,” he said. (PNA)