BY GILBERT P. BAYORAN
Negros Occidental and the highly-urbanized Bacolod City received yesterday 43,000 vials more of the Sinovac vaccine from the Department of Health.
A cargo flight of the Philippine Airlines from Manila delivered the 28 boxes of vaccines to the Bacolod-Silay Airport at 9 a.m. yesterday, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines said.
CAAP said that 15 boxes containing 23,000 vials were earmarked for Negros Occidental and 20,000 vials for Bacolod City.
Percy Malonesio, Bacolod-Silay Airport Civil Aviation manager, accompanied by Airport Security Group and CAAP-BSA personnel, supervised the unloading of vaccines from the plane to the vehicles that transported those to the cold storage facilities of the province and the city.
Dr. Edwin Miraflor Jr., officer in charge of the Bacolod City Health Office, who supervised the storage of the vials at the cold room facility of the City at the Government Center, said this new supply of Sinovac vaccines will be administered as second doses to priority Bacolod residents.
The city said that 66,902 Bacolod residents have been vaccinated, as of July 19. Of the number, 24,040 have been fully inoculated.
The newly-arrived vaccines beefed up the 123,940 doses of Johnson and Johnson’s Janssen recently received by the province and Bacolod City, aside from AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines.
The rollout of 70,000 doses of Janssen vaccines for A2 and A3 categories in Negros Occidental will start from July 26 until July 30, Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz said.
Diaz said the Covid-19 positivity rate in Negros Occidental is on a decline.*
