DUMAGUETE CITY, Negros Oriental, Aug. 24 (PIA) -- The Integrated Provincial Health Office (IPHO) COVID-19 vaccination team will soon visit cities and municipalities in Negros Oriental to help local health units accelerate their vaccination rollout.
Assistant Provincial Health Officer and Provincial Inter-Agency Task Force Incident Ground Commander Dr. Liland Estacion disclosed in her virtual press conference on Aug. 24 that the IPHO will hold “mobile vaccination centers” in areas with low vaccine rollout rate as directed by Provincial IATF Chairperson Gov. Roel Degamo.
“The governor already told me to go per Local Government Unit (LGU). We will be going there to augment ang ilang (their) vaccination especially with the A2. We will not confine ourselves to mega vaccination center but we will go to areas where vaccination is slow," Estacion said.
The A2 priority group refers to senior citizens.
Estacion earlier said that the province has only covered 20% or 26,617 out of the 133,317 senior citizens in the masterlist of the government’s vaccination program.
She urged the public to coordinate with their respective health offices to register and learn the schedule of the mobile vaccination in their area.
Estacion attributed the low vaccine rollout to low vaccine acceptance especially in the hinterlands and manpower shortage, noting that Rural Health Unit staff are usually few and they are also concentrating on other health programs such as dengue prevention and prevention of other communicable diseases.
Aside from this, some LGUs only have one doctor to supervise the vaccination.
“We will be there and helping them," Estacion said.
The IPHO vaccination team is composed of 14 persons including two doctors, nurses from the IPHO and the Negros Oriental Provincial Hospital (NOPH), nursing aids who are in charge of recording vital signs, and counselors stationed at the registration area.
Meanwhile, Estacion announced that the IPHO will also engage health workers in different health units for trainings related to vaccine handling such as proper handling and storing of the vaccines to avoid vaccine spoilage.
63 new cases
Negros Oriental logged 63 additional COVID-19 cases on Aug. 24.
New cases were logged in Bayawan City (6), Santa Catalina (3), Siaton (1), Bacong (9), Valencia (1), Dumaguete City (10), Sibulan (5), San Jose (1), Amlan (2), Tanjay City (1), Bais City (2), Manjuyod (1), Ayungon (7), La Libertad (1), Guihulngan City (2), Vallehermoso (5), and Canlaon City (6).
There is also one additional death case reported involving a 76 -year old male from Tanjay City with final diagnosis of acute respiratory failure second to pneumonia, sepsis secondary to COVID-19 pneumonia, and end stage renal disease secondary to renal diabetic kidney disease.
The province also recorded 34 new recoveries on the same day. (RAL/PIA7 Negros Oriental)
