The booster shots of healthcare workers in the different hospitals managed by the provincial government of Negros Occidental will be administered starting next week.
Vaccine distribution in charge, Dr. Claudelia Pabillo, said they only received the guidelines today, Nov. 17, and they need to review it so that they can uniformly start giving booster shots on Monday, Nov. 22, to frontline health workers in the nine hospitals of the province.
There are about 1,700 medical frontliners working in the different hospitals of the province and the booster vaccination, using the Pfizer brand, will be done by batch, Pabillo said.
Health workers who were fully vaccinated in the past six months will initially receive the third dose against the coronavirus disease.
Pabillo admitted that it is still a big challenge for them on how to increase the daily vaccination output since there are residents who continue to believe in fake news or misinformation due to their religious beliefs.
“It is unfortunate that we still have a lot of anti-vax advocates, and some are influential people, like the church leaders, who discourage their congregation,” she added.
Pabillo added that some church members feel pressured because their pastors are the ones campaigning or telling them not to get vaccinated. She said they want to talk with these church leaders on the benefits of vaccination.
The province’s vaccination team is prepared to answer questions on the vaccine program.
Aside from the ongoing vaccination activity of local government units, four teams of vaccinators were also sent to augment the manpower in LGUs with low daily output but large population target. — MML
