While the provincial government of Negros Occidental was excluded in the first round of COVID-19 vaccination, this does not mean that no shots are available for the province. According to Capitol a request to allocate AstraZeneca vaccines has been made.
In an interview with the press today, March 8, Gov. Eugenio Lacson said that he had already coordinated with the office of Senator Bong Go to include the provincial government on the list of recipients of the AstraZenca vaccine. Go is the chair of the committee on health in the senate.
According to Lacson, capitol is requesting for not more than 6,000 doses of the vaccine that was donated to the Philippines from the COVAX Facility. Lacson added that Provincial Consultant Albee Benitez is also working closely with vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. the allocation.
Once approved, Lacson said capitol may be able to receive the initial vaccines this week and will start to inoculate medical frontliners from various government-run hospitals in Negros Occidental.
Aside from this donation, the provincial government had already placed an advance order of 100,000 doses from AstraZeneca amounting to Php 27.5 million pesos to cover at least 8,600 health workers in Negros Occidental.
