(Eagle News) – Five pharmacies and two private clinics in Metro Manila will participate in the pilot implementation of “Resbakuna sa Botika” drive which tapped pharmacies and private clinics to administer COVID-19 vaccines, particularly booster shots, Malacanang said.
Cabinet Secretary and Acting Presidential Spokesperson and Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said that this intensified vaccination drive involving pharmacies will start on Thursday, January 20, and will last for a week.
The pilot implementation is the first phase of the Resbakuna sa Botika drive, which will administer booster shots to those who have completed their primary series or two doses of vaccines or the single dose Janssen vaccine.
It aims to get the vaccination against Covid-19 more accessible to the general public. For the initial week, this vaccination of boosters in pharmacies and clinics will happen in Metro Manila or the National Capital Region.
“Malugod kong binabalita na papaigtingin pa natin ang pagbabakuna at lalo nating ilalapit ang vaccination sites sa ating mga kababayan. Magkakaroon tayo sa Huwebes, January 20, ng Resbakuna sa Botika Drive, na mahalagang bahagi ng ating Bayanihan Bakunahan,” said Secretary Nograles in a press briefing on January 18, 2022.
Those who want to have their boosters may choose from the following participating pharmacies and private clinics: Healthway Manila Clinic, Mercury Drug Manila Malate President Quirino Branch, Southstar SSD Marikina Branch, Watsons SM Supercenter Pasig, Generika Signal 1 Branch in Taguig, TGP Paranaque Branch, and QualiMed McKinley.
“Libre po ito, kabahagi po ito ng ating implementation ng mga booster shots,” said Nograles, who emphasized that the pilot implementation is for booster shots only.
Each pharmacy or clinic will be allocated some 500 doses per week, good for 50 to 100 doses per day.
“Again, that’s just for initial. So yung pilot para lang makita natin ang flow, para makita natin yung uptake, makita natin yung demand, and then of course para meron po tayong basis for the expansion,” Nograles explained.
Malacanang said that the government will also expand this vaccination strategy to more pharmacies and clinics nationwide.
“Again, it is only a pilot for one week muna but obviously kung successful yan, if going on and on, increasing the pilot sites and then increasing the doses allocated kung needed, and then hopefully with the success of the pilot implementation we can expand it also to outside NCR,” said Nograles.
As of January 16, 2022, a total of 118,944,889 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered, which puts the Philippines in 18th rank globally among 205 countries in terms of total doses administered, 11th in Asia out of 47 countries, and third in the ASEAN.
(Eagle News Service)
