SUBIC BAY FREEPORT — The Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) on Tuesday began rolling out Covid-19 vaccines from the Department of Health (DOH) for the first three priority groups of recipients that include free port residents and workers, as well as SBMA employees.
SBMA Chairman and Administrator Wilma T. Eisma said the DOH-SBMA project will provide Covid-19 vaccines for free, but only with the limited doses allocated by the DOH.
“For this first batch under the DOH-SBMA program, we have secured a total of 1,147 doses for the A1 to A3 groups. But actually, a total of 5,705 doses of various vaccine brands will be allocated and I hope that would cover the majority of our intended recipients,” Eisma said on Tuesday during the first day of inoculation at the Subic gym here.
“The vaccines are for free, but only those who signed up for the DOH-SBMA vaccination program can avail of the injections,” she added.
Eisma pointed out that a separate list had been drawn up by the SBMA and the Subic Bay Freeport Chamber of Commerce (SBFCC) for vaccines intended for Subic residents and workers of locator-companies here.
“Some Subic Freeport residents and workers may have been in that other list,” she said.
Eisma also clarified that the initial doses under the DOH-SBMA project are intended for the A1 to A3 priority groups of frontline workers in health facilities and health professionals, both private and public; senior citizens 60 years old and above; and persons with comorbidities.
The ranking was determined by the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NITAG), which provides technical recommendations to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF), she added.
According to SBMA Deputy Administrator for Health and Safety Ronnie Yambao, a total of 120 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine was administered during the first day of the rollout, with the first recipient an SBMA frontline health worker.
Around 250 doses will be administered per day until Friday to use up all the first batch of the vaccine allocated by DOH for SBMA, Yambao said.
“We have six volunteer doctors giving the shots, and 15 nurses and 10 administrative staff from the SBMA Public Health and Safety Department who undertake registration, counseling and processing, so we’re up to it and I believe we can finish with this batch and take on the next ones,” he added.
Eisma, meanwhile, urged Subic stakeholders to sign up for the immunization program and take advantage of the free vaccines from DOH.
“This is not only for our own health and the safety of our family; it is also for the sake of our economy, because we need to be healthy in order to sustain our jobs and livelihood,” Eisma said.
The DOH said that the Philippine government has sourced out vaccines from seven separate manufacturers for its vaccination program due to limited vaccine supplies around the world.
Still, only those injections that received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will be given to the public, the DOH said.
The vaccines authorized by the FDA include those made by Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca, Coronavac, Sputnik, Janssen, Covaxin, and Moderna.
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