MANILA - The Philippines aims to vaccinate daily some 450,000 of its citizens against COVID-19 by next month, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said Wednesday.

Following the inoculation of healthcare workers, indigent senior citizens are next in line as they are most vulnerable to severe to critical COVID-19, according to Duque.

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"We're looking at 4,500 vaccination sites with each site vaccinating 100 individuals. So we’re looking at 450,000 vaccinees per day...as soon as the vaccines have come. Mga ganon (around), April," he told ANC's Headstart.

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Government earlier said it expects to finish inoculating some 1.7 million healthworkers against the coronavirus this month. Some 215,997 medical frontliners have so far been vaccinated, Duque said.

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The Philippines has so far received more than 1.1 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines for its health workers. Of this figure, 600,000 were CoronaVac jabs and 500,000 doses were from AstraZeneca.

Another 900,000 AstraZeneca jabs are set to arrive this month and 1.4 million more doses of Sinovac are set to arrive by the first week of April, Duque said.

"That should already suffice to complete the vaccination of the most prioritized group of healthcare workers. Kung matapos tayo, sunod senior citizens (if we finish, senior citizens would follow), 9.7 million senior citizens," he said.

Government earlier said it aims to inoculate 50 to 70 million adults, or two-thirds of the country's 108 million people this year to achieve herd immunity.

The country on Tuesday tallied 4,437 more COVID-19 cases, raising the country’s cumulative total to 631,320, with 57,736 active infections.

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It might reach 11,000 fresh cases daily by the end of the month if virus transmission is not curbed, the OCTA Research Group said.

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