The City Health Office (CHO) has deployed a mobile team to intensify its vaccination program to attain mass population protection against coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) soon.

Ma. Christine Lim, health education and promotion officer, said Saturday the mobile vaccination is another strategy innovated by the city government to reach out to eligible populations and boost its Covid-19 vaccination.

Lim said the mobile team headed by John Carlo Alfaro was deployed on Friday and is focused on vaccinating workers in the fishing industry and seafarers.

“From house-to-house and mobile vaccination strategies, the CHO this time adopts the boat-to-boat vaccination strategy to reach out to the eligible population and ultimately achieve mass population immunity against Covid-19,” Lim said in a statement.

“The team provided first, second as well as booster doses to company workers who, due to their workload, lack the time to visit vaccination sites to avail of the program,” she added.

Meanwhile, the CHO announced Saturday that a total of 1,288,360 doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered since the vaccination program was rolled out in March last year in this city.

Of the total doses administered, 649,058 were for the first dose while 639,302 were for the second dose.

Zamboanga City is now 90.52 percent partially vaccinated and 89.16 percent fully vaccinated based on the Department of Health (DOH)-set target of the eligible population of 716,960.

A total of 104,765 out of the 639,302 fully vaccinated individuals have received their vaccine booster.

The CHO reactivated the drive-thru vaccination center Saturday at the Zamboanga Integrated Bus Terminal (IBT) in Barangay Divisoria from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.

No other vaccination center will be operational, according to the CHO. (PNA)