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MANILA – A total of 1,353,107 Filipinos have been vaccinated since the government started rolling out its coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) vaccine program in March, according to National Task Force Against Covid-19 Chief Implementer Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. on Wednesday.
During a House joint panel hearing on the status of the implementation of the Covid-19 vaccination program, Galvez said a total of 1,562,563 vaccines were already administered to Filipinos as of April 20.
Of the total, 132,948 are senior citizens, 180,315 are persons with comorbidities, and 989,703 are healthcare workers.
The number also takes into account the more than 200,000 healthcare workers who have already received their second doses.
Galvez, also the country’s vaccine czar, said the Philippines is not left behind in the vaccination rollout program in comparison to its neighboring countries.
He noted that despite the “very limited” supply of Covid-19 vaccine shots, the Philippines ranked 4th among Southeast Asian (SEA) countries in the vaccine rollout in terms of the number of doses administered to individuals.
“Di po tayo nangungulelat (We did not perform badly). Nasa upper third po tayo sa vaccination program (We are in the upper third [parts of the ranking] of the vaccination program} even though our supply is very limited during this first quarter and second quarter,” Galvez said.
The top three countries leading the SEA rollout are Indonesia with more than 17 million, Singapore with over 2.2 million, and Myanmar with 1.74 million.
Galvez has earlier assured that more than 2 million Covid-19 vaccine doses are expected to arrive in the country this month, 4 million doses by May, and 7 to 8 million doses by June.
The Philippines aims to secure 148 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines from several companies to inoculate an initial 50 to 70 million Filipinos this year. (PNA)
