MANILA — The Philippines will administer the first batch of bivalent COVID-19 vaccines to healthcare workers and senior citizens, the Department of Health said Tuesday.

According to DOH officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire, individuals are eligible for the omicron-targeted jabs if it has been 4 months since their most recent vaccination.

"Gagamitin muna natin siya dun sa mas priority natin dahil hindi siya mahuhusto para sa lahat nung A1 to A3. So, we are now prioritizing A1 and A2 population," she said in a press briefing.

(We will use it first for our top priority because the jabs will not be enough for everyone in A1 to A3.)

The agency has secured 1,002,000 million doses of Pfizer's bivalent vaccines from COVAX facility, the United Nations-backed international vaccine-sharing scheme.

Bivalent vaccines are modified jabs that target the omicron variant and the original form of the virus.

"They have committed that in about 3-4 weeks dadating ang mga bakuna natin. Hopefully, ito ay mangyari," Vergeire said.

(They have committed that our shots will arrive in about 3-4 weeks. Hopefully, this will happen.)

The DOH has also finalized the operational guidelines on the use of the bivalent vaccines.

"Kailangan na lang lamang pong mapirmahan ng mga execom members for us to issue this department memorandum so our local governments can prepare already," Vergeire said.

(Executive committee members just need to sign this.)

To date, around 73.8 million Filipinos are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

Of the figure, over 21.5 million have received first boosters while 3.9 million have gotten second boosters.

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Courtesy of DOH