A report of the Task Group on Diplomatic Engagement and Negotiation showed the Philippines ranks 48th among 141 countries in terms of vaccine administration performance against the continuing Covid-19 pandemic as of March 30 this year.
Vaccine Czar, Secretary Carlito Galvez, Jr. said the same report by Bloomberg’s tracker showed that in Southeast Asia, the Philippines is in third spot behind Indonesia and Singapore.
Bloomberg data showed that that more than 590 million doses have been administered across 141 countries, enough to vaccinate 3.9 percent of the global population, with the latest vaccination rate at approximately 15.3 million doses daily.
Galvez’s National Task Force reported that some 738,913 doses have been administered to priority groups in the country, such as healthcare workers, senior citizens, and persons with comorbidities.
Of this number, 68% or some 737,569 persons received the first dose, while 1,344 or 0.1 percent have completed two doses. About 58% or 1,468,200 of the vaccines earlier secured have been distributed to 2,596 vaccination sites nationwide.
“With the recent arrival of 1 million doses of procured vaccines, the total number of available doses have doubled, and doses distributed throughout the country have significantly increased, with a total of 1,468,200 doses delivered,” the NTF said in Viber message.
Galvez said the task force now targets to expand the vaccination of more priority groups in the next coming weeks, adding that the current deployment of the vaccine is limited to priority groups A1 (medical front-liners) and A3 (aged 18 to 59 with comorbidities) who were given the option to choose between CoronaVac and AstraZeneca, while the priority group A2 (elderly) will receive AstraZeneca.
He assured that the nationwide vaccine rollout “is doing good amid the limited supply.” Reports indicate that the country’s vaccination rate has increased from 35,000 in the first week of March to 271,459 this week.