FIRST VACCINEE IN VISAYAS. Chief of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center, Dr. Gerardo Aquino Jr. (in red), receives his first dose of the China-made CoronaVac from Health Undersecretary Gerardo Bayugo during the ceremonial rollout of the national vaccination campaign in Cebu City on Thursday (March 4, 2021), as Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque (3rd from left), IATF deputy chief implementer Melquiades Feliciano (right) and Cebu City Vice Mayor Michael Rama (2nd from left) look on. Aquino was the first medical front-liner in the Visayas and Mindanao to receive the vaccine. (PNA photo by John Rey Saavedra)
CEBU CITY – The chief of the regional hospital here Thursday became the first medical front-liner in the Visayas and Mindanao to receive the China-donated coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) vaccine, CoronaVac.
Dr. Gerardo Aquino Jr., chief of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC), said he expected other health care workers of the Department of Health (DOH)-run hospital to follow him in taking the first shot.
After Aquino, DOH 7 (Central Visayas) chief pathologist Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases deputy chief implementer Melquiades Feliciano, and two chiefs of public hospitals in the city also received their first dose.
The vaccines administered to them were part of the 7,200 doses of CoronaVac that arrived in Cebu on Tuesday and were allocated for the VSMMC health care workers.
They are also part of the 600,000 doses donated by China to the Philippines.
Five members of the executive committee of the hospital also took the vaccine.
“We are targeting around 500 staff (of VSMMC) to be vaccinated per day in the next few days,” Aquino said in a press briefing after the ceremonial vaccination at the hospital’s Behavioral Science Building.
He noted that some health care workers backed out and expressed their preference to be inoculated with other brands.
The first vaccinees in the Visayas said they felt fine after getting their anti-Covid-19 shots.
“Well you know, the usual thing that you feel when you have your vaccines. When I had my flu shot, my pneumococcal shot, there is a little pain I felt in (the) injection site. Other than that, I feel well, I feel okay and elated, actually,” Loreche told reporters.
Aquino said getting a shot of the coronavirus disease vaccine is “like getting injected with other vaccines.”
He received the first dose from Health Undersecretary Gerardo Bayugo.
The VSMMC fielded at least 15 nurses who acted as vaccinators for their colleagues in the hospital who registered to get the CoronaVac in the initial rollout.
The DOH also assigned physicians to conduct pre-screening and post-inoculation monitoring and interview vaccinees to identify possible adverse effects.
Like other hospital staff who underwent counseling, Aquino, Loreche, Feliciano, and the two hospital chiefs also received post-inoculation interviews.
Dr. Jaime Bernadas, DOH-7 director, said 20,000 more doses of Sinovac vaccines will arrive on Friday morning for a public rollout of the national vaccination program.
Bernadas said the Eversley Child Sanitarium and General Hospital in Mandaue City and the St. Anthony Mother and Child Hospital in Barangay Basak in this city have submitted their list of health care workers who will be vaccinated in the coming days.
The list will be part of the “substitute vaccinees” in case some of the more than 3,000 workers at VSMMC decline the CoronaVac and decide to wait for other vaccine brands.
He said in a speech after Aquino’s ceremonial inoculation that the national government intends to vaccinate all health care workers in the country, including those assigned in local government units whom he described as “real medical front-liners”.
Loreche expressed optimism that with them taking the first shot, many of their colleagues would follow.
“We really expect that since we have shown the way to our fellow health care workers, front-liners, Cebuanos, they see that Sinovac vaccine is really safe and we believe that we have to have the vaccine as it is now, as this is the best vaccine that we have for us at this moment,” she said. (PNA)
