LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – The health department and the National Task Force Against Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) assured Benguet caretaker congressman and Anti-Crime and Terrorism through Community Involvement and Support (ACT-CIS) Party-list Rep. Eric Yap that Benguet will not be left out in the government’s ongoing mass vaccination program for the realization of the desired herd immunity by the end of the year or early next year.
Yap, who chairs the powerful House Committee on Appropriations, reported he met with ranking health department and NTF officials to discuss the issues and concerns affecting the smooth roll out of the vaccination program and how Benguet can be provided with more vaccines as a large number of the province’s population are now ready be vaccinated.
He pointed out that he got the commitment of health and NTF officials for additional 5,000 doses of vaccines to delivered in the province to further improve the ongoing mass vaccination being implemented in the 13 municipalities, aside from being given the assurance that there will be more vaccines for the province once the supply of vaccines from pharmaceutical companies shall have stabilized.
The neophyte lawmaker disclosed he understands the priority being given by the health department and the NTF to areas with high COVID19 cases in the allocation of vaccines but low risk areas should not also be left out because there might be a sudden reversal in the situation if limited vaccines will not be given to areas with low COVID-19 cases.
Congressman Yap claimed that as per his talks with Gov. Melchor Diclas and local health officials, a large number of the province’s population is already eagerly awaiting to be vaccinated thus his request from concerned government bodies to consider increasing the vaccine allocation for Benguet.
According to him, there is a need to also vaccinate agriculture industry stakeholders as they are part of the vulnerable and marginalized sectors as they have to be always out of their residences to tend to and market their agricultural produce, thus, the need for more vaccines.
Congressman Yap underscored that Benguet is the source of more than 80 percent of the vegetables being sold in the country, thus, government must also ensure the protection of the farmers from the deadly virus for them to sustain the adequate supply of agricultural crops for the markets in the different parts of the country.
Initially, Benguet got more or less 15,000 does of assorted vaccines from the health department since March which had already been inoculated to the members of the priority sectors in the different municipalities.
He urged residents to register in their respective barangays for them to be included in the list of individuals for vaccination once sufficient does of vaccines will be made available by the national government. By HENT