Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 1) — Department of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III also made his own history on Monday as he administered the first anti-coronavirus shots made by Chinese firm Sinovac to the healthcare workers at the Lung Center of the Philippines and V. Luna Medical Center – a military hospital in Quezon City.
Duque vaccinated Dr. Eileen Aniceto, Lung Center’s Emergency Medicine Department head, the first medical worker at the hospital to have received the COVID-19 vaccine.
Lung Center received an initial 600 doses of the Sinovac vaccine on Monday. Lung Center Executive Director Dr. Vincent Balanag said 150 employees are set to be inoculated this week, adding they are still convincing others to avoid vaccine wastage.
Initially, 90 percent of the around 1,400 employees of the Lung Center were willing to get vaccinated. But this was when they learned that doses of COVID-19 vaccine made by American pharmaceutical firm Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech were supposed to be the first shots to arrive in the country.
Officials have yet to give an exact date as to the arrival of Pfizer-BioNTech shots. They have said the vaccine shipment was originally slated to be delivered last month, but that was hampered by negotiations on an indemnification clause.
Duque also administered Sinovac’s anti-virus shot to Col. Fatima Navarro, V. Luna Medical Center chief.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines requires all of its personnel to be vaccinated.
With the arrival of 600,000 doses of Chinese firm Sinovac’s COVID-19 vaccine doses, official inoculations against the deadly coronavirus have finally begun in the country.
A day after the delivery of CoronaVac doses donated by China, the government rolled out its vaccination program in six hospitals in Metro Manila, considered as the COVID-19 epicenter since the pandemic struck.
Philippine General Hospital Director Dr. Gerardo “Gap” Legaspi was the first person in the country to get a COVID-19 vaccine legally. Prior to the legal shots received by Legaspi, PGH healthcare workers, FDA Director General Eric Domingo, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez, among others, it was admitted that several government officials and Presidential security members jumped the priority line and used smuggled vaccines made by China’s Sinopharm as early as last year.
China decided to give a fraction or 100,000 of the donated doses to the Department of National Defense. Half of these may go to government troops, the AFP said last week.
Meanwhile, the DOH said that 64-year-old Duque will not get the Sinovac vaccine because the FDA has recommended giving the shot to people aged 18-59 only. It added — contrary to Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque’s announcement — that the health chief was not among those vaccinated Monday.
“He will be vaccinated when the appropriate vaccine becomes available, following of course the prioritization framework,” the DOH told reporters in a Viber message.
LOOK: Health Secretary Francisco Duque vaccinates Dr. Eileen Aniceto, Lung Center's Emergency Medicine Department head….
Posted by CNN Philippines on Sunday, February 28, 2021
LOOK: DOH Secretary Francisco Duque administers Sinovac's anti-virus shot to Col. Fatima Navarro, V. Luna Medical Center chief | @cathmodesto1 pic.twitter.com/xdiw0tuwYc
— CNN Philippines (@cnnphilippines) March 1, 2021
DOH chief Duque gives first jab at the V. Luna General Hospital to Col. Fatima Navarro. Officials earlier said it is mandatory for our troops to receive the CoronaVac vaccine | @AC_Nicholls pic.twitter.com/JLdBZiexeg
— CNN Philippines (@cnnphilippines) March 1, 2021
CNN Philippines Correspondent Gerg Cahiles contributed to this report
