Over 7,000 doses of Sinovac vaccines arrive for NegOcc, Bacolod

April 6, 2021 by No Comments

AN ADDITIONAL 7,200 doses of Sinovac Covid-19 vaccines arrived Tuesday, April 6, for Negros Occidental and Bacolod City.

Dr. Ernell Tumimbang, Provincial Health Officer said of the 7,200 doses, 5,200 are for Negros Occidental, while 2,000 doses are for Bacolod City.

The vaccines intended for the province will be distributed to the towns and cities divided into two doses, with 2,600 for the first dose and another 2,600 for the second dose, Tumimbang said.

The vaccines will be given to healthcare workers who have been identified by the respective local government units (LGUs).

Tumimbang said the province has a total of 31,000 medical frontliners, including the barangay health workers and Barangay Health Emergency Response Teams (BHERTs).

Tumimbang said the second dose of the vaccines will be given after 28 to 32 days after those given the first dose have fully recovered from some minor side effects on the vaccine like mild fever.

Meanwhile, Dr. Chris Sorongon, deputy for medical data and analysis of the Emergency Operations Center Task Force (EOC-TF) of Bacolod City, said they already received 2,000 doses of Sinovac vaccine for Bacolod City Tuesday, April 6.

He said the new supply of vaccines will be used for the 1,000 medical frontliners in the city.

EOC records showed about 5,746 medical frontliners in Bacolod were already inoculated with Sinovac and AstraZeneca vaccines.

Bacolod City earlier received a total of 312 vials of AstraZeneca vaccine from the National Government and those were distributed to Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital, Riverside Medical Center, Bacolod Adventist Medical Center and The Doctor’s Hospital Inc.

Aside from the AstraZeneca vaccine, Bacolod City also earlier received more than 840 doses of Sinovac vaccine that were used for medical frontliners assigned at isolation quarantine facilities, City Health Office, barangay health workers, independent clinics and laboratories.

Sorongon said the vaccine recipient should receive the same brand of vaccine on their first and second doses of vaccination.

“Once they received the Sinovac vaccine in the first dose, they should also get the Sinovac vaccine in the second dose. They should not mix the Sinovac, AstraZeneca or another brand of Covid-19 vaccines,” he said.

On Monday, April 5, a total of 27 medical frontliners in Bacolod City received their second doses of Sinovac vaccine against Covid-19 at the Bacolod Government Center.

The city will finish the inoculation of the second doses of Sinovac vaccine within this week and they will start the vaccination of the second doses of AstraZeneca vaccine in May.

It can be recalled that the Philippines on March 29 received the first batch of the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccines, which the government has purchased from China.

Two batches of the China-donated Sinovac vaccines had previously arrived in the Philippines since February this year.