Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 9)— The government aims to hike the COVID-19 vaccination coverage for the elderly this month, Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez said Tuesday amid a similar call from the World Health Organization (WHO) to focus on the sector.
“The WHO has already spoken that we need to concentrate our vaccination to the elderly. Right now, we are at 59% of the coverage of the elderly. We will be focusing that this month of November, we will try to push for 70% coverage of all the elderly,” Galvez told reporters during the arrival ceremony of AstraZeneca doses donated by Germany.
RELATED: PH receives over 790,000 AstraZeneca doses from Germany
WHO country representative Rabindra Abeyasinghe — one of the officials who welcomed the fresh vaccine shipment — also underscored the need to concentrate on the priority group amid increasing vaccine supply.
“We still believe that we need to increase the coverage among the elderly population, the priority groups, so that we can save as many lives as possible,” Abeyasinghe said.
Both Galvez and Abeyasinghe reiterated calls for local government units to ramp up the vaccine distribution in the regions.
“[We] continue to urge the LGUs to take ownership of the vaccination drive to use the vaccines so that we can protect the most vulnerable groups as quickly as possible, so that we can open up the economy in a sustainable manner, and prevent the need for future lockdown,” the WHO official said.
The government seeks to inoculate at least 54 million Filipinos by year end.
