Lawyer John Eddu Ibañez, executive secretary of Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes, said the City will start the vaccination rollout for the said age group on Valentine’s Day on Monday, February 14, 2022.
Dr. Jeffrey Ibones, head of the Cebu City Health Department, said they will also start the vaccination for ages five to 11 years old on Wednesday, February 16.
In Mandaue City, the vaccination will be held in Parkmall at the North Reclamation Area while in Cebu City, the venue will be the Cebu City Sports Center.
To keep the children entertained and at ease while waiting for their turn, Dr. Ligaya Lakambini Dargantes, deputy chief of Mandaue City Vaccination Operations Center, said they will have mascots at the vaccination area as recommended by the Philippine Pediatric Society.
Dargantes also said they will look into the possibility of opening a second vaccination site for children at the University of Cebu Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu (UCLM) once the inoculation begins.
Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, chief pathologist of the Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH) 7, said Cebu, including the three highly urbanized cities, has already registered about 177,000 children belonging to the five to 11 years old age group.
Cebu Province has the biggest number of registered children with 150,000, followed by Mandaue City with 15,800, Cebu City with 6,200, and Lapu-Lapu City with 5,000 children.
In Metro Cebu, Minglanilla registered 20,044 children; the City of Naga, 13,900; Cordova, 10,483; Talisay City, 15,000; Consolacion, 14,633; and Liloan, 4,580.
Negros Oriental and Bohol Provinces, on the other hand, have listed about 93,000 and 122,000 children, respectively. Siquijor Province has listed about 8,000 children for the vaccination.
Loreche earlier said they will distribute the 88,000 doses of Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccines to different local government units (LGUs) in the region. The allocation per LGU will depend on the number of children who registered.
In Manila and other parts of the country, 52,000 children aged five to 11 have received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, the DOH said on Friday, February 11, 2022.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said a total of 52,262 minors belonging to the said age bracket were inoculated in the country.
Of the number, only four experienced minor adverse effects following inoculation. The side effects include pain at the injection site, rashes, slight increase in blood pressure, fever and vomiting, which were immediately addressed by doctors.
Vergeire said they fully recovered after a few hours.
She reassured parents that they have nothing to worry about, as health workers were all trained and prepared to respond to such eventualities.
The National Government started vaccinating kids five to 11 last Monday, February 7.
There are currently a total of 56 vaccination sites catering to children aged five to 11, said Vergeire. (SunStar Philippines)
