ILOILO City – Ilonggos will not be coerced to take shots against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) amid safety concerns on the warp speed development of the vaccines.
“We will not force anyone to be vaccinated,” said Mayor Jerry Treñas.
But he assured the public that the vaccines, which are seen to help turn the tide of the global pandemic, will be made available for everyone.
This southern city, home to some 470,000 people, is hoping to start immunization in May at the earliest.
The city mayor himself conducted a series of meetings in preparation for the mass rollout of the vaccines.
“To ensure that our vaccination process will be effective, I called our barangay representatives and district doctors to ask for inputs on how we conduct the immunization,” said Treñas.
Dr. Annabelle Tang and Dr. Roland Fortuna of the City Health Office, along with district health officers and barangay captains, were tasked to plan the actual vaccination procedures.
“Once we complete our preparations and proposed procedures, we will send these to vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., the Department of Health and AstraZeneca,” the city mayor added.
Also, the city government through the 180 barangay councils started listing down names from households in the city’s seven districts willing to be inoculated with COVID-19 vaccines.
As of Wednesday, Iloilo City had 179 active cases out of 4,842 total COVID-19 infections.
On Jan. 10, the city government entered into a tripartite agreement with AstraZeneca and the national government for the advance procurement of 600,000 vials of AZD1222 Vaccine that could cover 300,000 city residents (the vaccination requires two doses).
Two hundred thousand more doses are being eyed for the vaccination of non-resident workers.
The target number of persons for vaccination is 60 percent of the city’s total population.
“We need to immunize everyone to make sure the economy can move forward,” Treñas said.
The mayor earlier signed a confidentiality disclosure agreement with AstraZeneca with an earmarked fund of P200 million.
AstraZeneca’s vaccine is one of the cheaper vaccines included in the data released by the Senate committee on finance chair Sonny Angara in December. It is only worth P610 for two doses per person.
In terms of efficacy rate, researchers earlier noted the efficacy rate for two doses – with the first dose at half strength – reached 90 percent. A combination of two full-strength doses resulted in 62 percent efficacy.
According to a Jan. 9 study released by The Lancet, a weekly general medical journal, AstraZeneca’s overall vaccine efficacy rate was 70 percent./PN
