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MANILA - Over a million people in Quezon City have been identified as priority recipients of COVID-19 jabs, Mayor Joy Belmonte said Friday.

"We are following the protocols set by the national government with regards to priority listing. We have identified a whopping 1.06 [million] people belonging to this priority group," she told ANC.

The list will include medical frontliners, older people, indigent population, uniformed personnel and essential workers, she added.

The Quezon City ID system will be used for the registration of vaccine beneficiaries, who will be notified through text message, e-mail or printout of their scheduled vaccination.

Belmonte said they had placed everything in order, including the "immunization process, 24 vaccination sites and training of inoculators."

The city government aims to vaccinate a total of 1.6 million people or 80 percent of its population to achieve herd immunity.

"We have about 1.6 million people to vaccinate and I assume, well, I'm estimating this will take anywhere from 6 to 8 months to finish," Belmonte said.

The city government has also begun pre-registration of COVID-19 vaccination and some 90,000 people have already signed up to take the shots, she added.

Quezon City has allocated some P1 billion in its 2021 budget to procure vaccines and supplies needed for the inoculation.

It has entered into a tripartite agreement with the National Task Force Against COVID-19 and AstraZeneca for the purchase of 1.1 million doses of anti-coronavirus vaccine.

These jabs will be good for about half a million people and the city government is also in talks with other pharmaceutical firms to procure more COVID-19 shots.

As of Feb. 11, Quezon City has logged 31,171 COVID-19 cases, data from the city's health department showed. The tally includes 29,430 recoveries, 915 active cases and 826 fatalities.