OVER 221,000 doses of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccines of various brands are due to expire at the Negros Occidental Provincial Cold Room Storage by the end of April this year.Dr. Claudella Josefa Pabillo, who is in-charge of the province’s cold storage facility, said expiring vaccines at the end of April include Pfizer orange cap – 36,720 doses; Moderna – 4,890 doses; AstraZeneca – 38,900 doses; and Janssen – 140,539 doses.But Pabillo said the Pfizer orange cap vaccines may be utilized before the end of the month as they are allocated for the inoculation of children aged five to 11 years old.She said some people failed to return for their second dose, thus some vaccines were not utilized.Pabillo also said that the final disposition of vaccines that are nearing expiration is within the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).Government agencies involved in the inoculation drive are advised that the expiration period of the vaccines is extended up to one month, the doctor said, as she reiterated that Covid-19 jabs will still be available in all local government units (LGUs) and hospitals for those who want to avail of them.Earlier Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz II noted that the slow vaccination turnout is being experienced not only in the province but also worldwide.Those who are left unvaccinated are people who do not believe in the vaccine’s efficacy because of their religion, while others refuse to be inoculated because of personal beliefs, he added.Meanwhile, the Bacolod City Emergency Operations Center-Task Force (EOC-TF) will also wait for the emergency use authorization (EUA) for the extension of expiration date of the Covid-19 vaccines earlier delivered to the city, its top official said.Em Ang, executive director of the EOC-TF, said Thursday, March 31, that several doses of AstraZeneca vaccines will expire this month and they will wait for the directive from the Department of Health (DOH) on what to do with it.”When they sent [these vaccines] to us, it’s near expiry and right now we only administered 831 doses of vaccines in a day infor all vaccination centers. Before, we averaged 12,000 doses to 15,000 in a day,” she said.Ang said that before the delivery of the vaccines two months ago, they refused to accept it and they advised the City Health Office (CHO) to write the DOH-Western Visayas and National Vaccination Operations Center (NVOC) to refuse the delivery because they still have a big inventory of the vaccines in the city’s cold room.”But the DOH replied that we cannot refuse the vaccines so they delivered it to the city,” she said.CHO records showed that a total of 20,000 of AstraZeneca vaccines will expire this month and another 40,000 doses in May and 10,000 doses in June.”We still have an enough supply of vaccines in the cold room and we cannot administer these vaccines in such a short period of time (since it’s near expiry) considering that 130 percent of the target population were already fully vaccinated,” Ang said.She said that currently, the city is only concentrating on booster shots and inoculation of children aged five to 11 years old.Ang said they cannot return or distribute the vaccines to other LGUs without a directive from the DOH.