Covid-19 vaccination roll-out begins in Aklan, Antique

More local government units (LGUs) in Western Visayas have started inoculating their medical frontliners after receiving China’s Sinovac vaccines bringing hope to the region’s increasing Covid-19 cases.

On Wednesday, March 10, 2021, Aklan province officially began vaccinating its medical frontliners.

In his social media account, Aklan Governor Florencio Miraflores shared that two female doctors were the first to get vaccinated in the province. The two medical frontliners who received the vaccine jabs were Dr. Joanne Abril – an infectious disease specialist, and Provincial Health Officer I Dr. Leslie Anne Luces of the Aklan Provincial Health Office (PHO).

The provincial government of Aklan has received some 2,420 Sinovac vaccines on Tuesday, March 9, 2021. The vaccines were allocated by the Department of Health Western Visayas (DOH-6) from the over 16,000 doses of Sinovac vaccines which arrived in the region last week.

Meanwhile, health workers of the Angel Salazar Memorial General Hospital (ASMGH) in Antique also received their first dose of Sinovac vaccines on Wednesday.

A total of 800 vials of Sinovac vaccines were initially allotted by the health department for the medical frontliners in the Antique province.

Since the health department started rolling out the first batch of Sinovac vaccines last week, a total of 1,634 medical frontliners have been inoculated in the region, as of March 9, 2021.

According to DOH-6, the medical frontliners are from Western Visayas Medical Center, West Visayas State University Medical Center, St. Paul’s Hospital Iloilo, Iloilo Doctors’ Hospital in Iloilo City; and Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital (CLMMRH), Riverside Medical Center Inc. (RMCI), The Doctor’s Hospital, Bacolod Queen of Mercy Hospital and South Bacolod General Hospital in Bacolod City.

Around 16,880 vials for the second dose of Sinovac and 10,000 doses of Oxford’s AstraZeneca vaccines have also arrived in the region on Wednesday.

The vaccines were transported through a commercial flight of the Philippine Airlines and arrived at the Iloilo International Airport in Cabatuan, Iloilo at around 9 a.m. (ERS)