BY GILBERT P. BAYORAN
Negros Occidental and the highly-urbanized city of Bacolod received yesterday 25,000 more vials of Sinovac vaccines from the Department of Health, as both local government units intensify their vaccination activities to achieve herd immunity as early as possible.
Provincial Incident Management Team head Zeaphard Gerhart Caelian said that seven boxes of vaccines, containing 10,000 vials of Sinovac, were transported to the cold storage facility of the provincial government at the Capitol in Bacolod City.
The remaining 10 boxes, containing 15,000 doses, were delivered to the cold storage facility of the Bacolod City government.
Mayor Evelio Leonardia thanked DOH 6 regional director Emilia Monicimpo for immediately responding to his request for more vaccines for Bacolod City.
“This is good news because this will accelerate the momentum of our vaccination program,” Leonardia said.
City Administrator Em Ang, executive director of the Emergency Operations Center and coordinator of the Covid-19 Vaccination Council, said the 15,000 doses that arrived yesterday are in addition to the 60,740 doses received by the City since March, bringing the total to 75,740 doses of Sinovac and AstraZeneca vaccines given to Bacolod by the national government.
As of June 22, the EOC and CoVaC have administered a total of 54,849 doses of Covid-19 vaccines to Bacolodnons, Ang said.
Meanwhile, the arrival of more Sinovac vaccines for Negros Occidental came after Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson also scheduled the inoculation of 11,700 doses of Pfizer vaccine to Negrenses who belong in the A1 to A3 categories, from June 28 to July 2.
The vaccination rollout will be held at the Teresita Lopez Jalandoni Provincial Hospital in Silay City, and he Negros Residences in Bacolod City.*
