Vaccine shots intensify service propensity of BARMM frontliners 

COTABATO CITY --- The morale of frontliners in the Bangsamoro region went high after getting jabs against a viral disease that has affected 584,667 in the country as of last week.

Bangsamoro Local Government Minister Naguib Sinarimbo, regional government spokesman, said Thursday the Sinovac vaccine roll outs for their frontliners that began early this week went on smoothly.

A big number of health workers in the Bangsamoro region, whose lives are on the line as they perform anti-COVID-19 assignments, got Sinovac shots in symbolic roll outs launched early this week.

Chiefs of hospitals and personnel of the Integrated Provincial Health Offices in the Bangsamoro provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi and in the cities of Lamitan and Marawi got Sinovac shots one after another during the roll outs.

Government health workers in Cotabato City, also inside the Bangsamoro core territory, got vaccinated too via the Department of Health-12.

Sinarimbo said the leadership of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao is grateful to the national government for providing BARMM frontliners with 4,200 doses of Sinovac vaccines, enough for 2,100 persons at two shots each.

On Wednesday, personnel of two government hospitals in Maguindanao, one in Datu Odin Sinsuat and the other in Upi, got Sinovac inoculations in separate roll outs led by physician Elizabeth Samama, chief of IPHO-Maguindanao.

Physician Michael Macion, chief of the Datu Blah Sinsuat District Hospital in Upi, and their administrative officer, Mae Bagundang-Sinsuat, were first to receive jabs during the symbolic event.

Macion said he is thankful to the Ministry of Health-BARMM and the IPHO-Maguindanao for allocating 100 doses of Sinovac for medical service providers under his supervision as chief of the Datu Blah District Hospital.

“It heightened even more our morale to keep protecting the local communities from the nasty coronavirus disease,” Macion told reporters after receiving a Sinovac jab administered by Samama.

Macion appealed to residents of municipalities around the Datu Blah District Hospital to ignore circulating fake stories that COVID-19 vaccines can do more harm than good.

“Listen only to government health institutions, to the Bangsamoro health ministry, to the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund, not to skeptics on Facebook,” Macion said.

BARMM’s acting health minister, physician Amirel Sanday, got a Sinovac shot two days prior, during an initial roll out at the IPHO-Maguindanao operation center in Shariff Aguak town.

At least 6,000 doses of Astrazeneca anti-COVID-19 vaccines from Metro Manila arrived Wednesday at the Maguindanao Airport in Datu Odin Sinsuat town near Cotabato City.

The vaccines are intended for frontliners in Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, according to sources from the United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF.

The UNICEF played a key role in the importation of the vaccines from abroad.

The distribution of the Astrazeneca vaccines is part of the COVAX global anti-COVID-19 immunization program, funded by different governments, humanitarian organizations, vaccine manufacturers and many other transnational entities.

The COVAX scheme is based on the international Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator initiative, launched in April 2020 by the World Health Organization, the European Commission and government of France in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

BARMM received a total of 10,000 doses of the AstraZeneca on March 10, shipped under the international COVAX initiative.

A part of the shipment was delivered directly to the Basilan-Sulu-Tawi-Tawi, or Basulta Area via Zamboanga City.

A big number of health workers in the Bangsamoro region got Sinovac jabs in symbolic roll outs since early this week.  

“Our frontliners are happy with this,” said Usman, who, as BARMM’s acting health minister, is actively helping push the Bangsamoro government’s war on COVID-19 forward.