MANILA—About 2.4 million senior citizens nationwide are not yet vaccinated against Covid-19, a health official said last week.
In a Laging Handa briefing, Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said that only 68 percent of the target senior citizen population have received their first dose of Covid-19 jabs, 70 percent have been fully vaccinated, and 14 percent already got booster shots.
“It’s not vaccine hesitancy, some senior citizens don’t want to be vaccinated because they’re already at the later years of their lives,” said Cabotaje, who is also the National Vaccination Operations Center (NVOC) chief.
To address the issue, Cabotaje said it would be best to make the vaccination process easier and quicker for senior citizens since most of them dislike going through many procedures.
Earlier, some local government units (LGUs) conducted door-to-door Covid-19 vaccination and arranged transportation to inoculation sites for senior citizens.
Currently, the NVOC is planning to bring the vaccination centers closer to senior citizens, especially in areas where the inoculation rate of this target population is low.
“One of the problems, is in BARMM [Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao], some of those living in these places in the North are hesitant to get the jab because of cultural and religious beliefs,” Cabotaje said.
To focus on areas needing attention, Cabotaje guaranteed the NVOC will work more closely with the senior citizen groups and the LGUs.
“Our senior citizens are important because they are most at risk and most vulnerable and when they get sick and they are brought to the hospitals and have serious disease, they are at a big risk to die,” she said.