Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque on Friday said the updated list of vaccine priority recipients of the Interim National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (iNITAG) includes non-professionals like students, nursing aides, janitors, barangay health workers.
The non-professionals together with health professionals who serve as frontline workers in health facilities were categorized by the iNTAG as A1, meaning they will be the top priority in the vaccination drive of the government, which is expected to start this month.
Coming in second place in the line of priority recipients are senior citizen aged 60 years old and above (A2); persons with comorbidities not otherwise included in the preceding categories (A3); frontline personnel in essential sectors including uniformed personnel and those in working sectors identified by the IATF as essential during enhanced community quarantine (A4); and indigent population not otherwise included in the preceding categories (A5).
Once the government completes inoculating those in the A category, it will proceed vaccinating those in the B classifications.
These include Teachers, Social Workers (B1); other Government Workers (B2); other essential workers (B3); socio-demographic groups at significantly higher risk other than senior citizens and indigenous people (B4); overseas Filipino workers (B5); and other Remaining Workforce (B6).
Those in the C category or the rest of the Filipino population not include in the previous classification will be the least priority in the government Covid-19 vaccination drive.
In terms of location, Roque said areas, which will be prioritize in the vaccination drive are those areas where there large number of Covid-19 (attack rate of 100,000 population in the last four weeks; and local government units, which have already has the necessary supply chain capability.
He said the iNITAG was given the authority by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Infectious Diseases (IATF) to determine the “inclusion and exclusion criteria” for the Covid-19 vaccine to be used by the government.
This includes the first batch of Covid-19 vaccine Pfizer-BioNTech, which are scheduled to arrive this month.
Roque said the first 117,000 Pfizer-BioNTech will be used by the government for Covid-19 dedicated hospitals; Covid-19 referral hospitals; hospitals of the Department of Health; LGU hospitals; hospitals for uniformed services/personnel; and private hospitals.