The city government here on Wednesday said its additional allocation of 14,000 vaccines will only be enough until June 23 and reiterated its appeal for more supplies from the national government.
“We are doing well with our vaccination rollout. Thus, we humbly ask for more vaccine allocation for the high-risk senior citizens, religious leaders, and economic front-liners,” said Mayor Jerry P. Treñas in a letter addressed to both Secretaries Francisco Duque III of Health and Carlito Galvez Jr., the Vaccine czar and National Task Force Against Covid -19 chief implementer.
Currently, the city has been allotted a total of 34,524 doses of Sinovac and 16,880 doses of the AstraZeneca.
Already, 8,000 individuals have received their full two doses while 40,000 others were inoculated with their first doses.
In addition to vaccines, the mayor also asked for “urgent provisions of High Flow Oxygen Therapy (HFOT).”
HFOT is a form of respiratory support used in the hospital that delivers warmed, humidified, oxygen-enriched air to patients.
“On behalf of the city government and the Ilonggos, we appeal for your kind consideration to provide support in terms of the following: PhilHealth reimbursement to all hospitals, medical supplies and equipment such as ventilators, medications such as Remdesivir and Tocilizumab, and deployment of more hospital personnel,” Treñas said.
Meanwhile, lawyers from the city and province of Iloilo have joined the call for “more vaccine allocation” following the plea from various business and medical groups.
Lawyer Lorena Pearl Roseluz G. Tubongbanua, president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) Iloilo chapter, sent a two-page letter addressed to Duque and Galvez on June 16, 2021.
She told the government officials that the members of their organization “are among the most vulnerable for infection of this present pandemic”.
“In fact, several of its members have already been infected and succumbed to death. There is an urgent need that the lawyers of Iloilo be also included in the vaccine rollout at the soonest reasonable time,” she said.
IBP has 1,128 active members in the judiciary, academe, business, government, and private sector as well as private practitioners.
She added that the latest modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) classification of the city and province of Iloilo and the “alarming spread of the virus” resulted in the closure of all levels of court in this part of the country “depriving litigants and stakeholders of our justice system the efficient and prompt service”.
The June 16 regional case bulletin released by the Department of Health Western Visayas Center for Health Development showed Iloilo City has 87 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) bringing to 2, 551 the active cases of the metropolis.
Of the 9, 718 total cumulative cases of the city, 240 have died and the rest have already recovered.
Source: Philippines News Agency