Doctors in Negros Oriental are reiterating the government’s call for the public to get vaccinated while a stricter quarantine status is in effect by President Rodrigo Duterte.
As of writing, the Integrated Provincial Health Office (IPHO) is set to start giving shots for the A3 priority list of the national government’s immunization program.
Negros Oriental has been lagging behind other provinces in Central Visayas, with most of the vaccine supplies sent to metropolitan Cebu, where most infections are reported until attention shifted to Dumaguete City recently.
Dr. Edna Alcantara, vice-president of the Philippine College of Physicians (PCP) Negros Oriental Chapter, said Dumaguete has become the “covid capital of the Philippines.”
Dr. Frances Yap of the Negros Oriental Medical Society described the current vaccination rollout in the province as “very slow.”
“We are trying to catch something unseen. But our vaccination is like a turtle,” Yap said. “If we have faster rollout of the vaccination, the spread [of Covid] will slow down.”
Medical Center and Holy Child Hospital pulmonologist Dr. Caesar Antonio Ligo also raised the possibility of a new strain of Covid-19 in the province, which he thinks is more infectious and is causing severe symptoms and even death, as seen with their patients.
“We might be dealing with variants of covid. That’s why we have a high transmission rate,” Ligo said.
IPHO chief Dr. Liland Estacion could not confirm Ligo’s theory since there is no genome sequencing test done in the province recently.
However, the Negros Oriental Provincial Hospital Molecular Laboratory (NOPH-ML) chief Dr. Nikko Cablao in a CHRONICLE interview, said there was a recent case of a possible new variant as reported by a hospital in Dumaguete.
Cablao explained that the case warrants reporting and testing from the Philippine Genome Center, but the hospital should do it.
“That’s a possibility (of a new variant). Or it could be a different virus,” he said. “We do not know. It was antigen positive and with covid symptoms. But tested negative with our (RT-)PCR.”
Ligo insists that with the possibility of a new vicious variant, adhering to health protocols and vaccination is needed throughout the province.
IPHO reported Thursday that Negros Oriental has only received 48,124 doses of AstraZeneca and Sinovac vaccines from the national government, with the latest delivery done last week. This does not include the 10,000 doses of Sinovac sent directly to Dumaguete from the National Inter-Agency Task Force.
Estacion said 23,618 frontliners got their first dose, and 12,724 got their second dose. Estacion said some have reportedly not returned for the second dose because of doubts about the shot’s safety.
The province has started inoculating senior citizens or the A2 priority group, with 6,409 receiving the first dose and only 2,919 for the second dose.
DOH Central Visayas announced last week the start of immunization or A4 priority groups of those frontline personnel in essential sectors, including uniformed personnel. (BY RYAN SOROTE)