First Covid community vaccination center holds successful pilot testing in Mandaue

MANDAUE City is now ready to undertake community vaccinations for Covid-19 with the successful pilot testing of the first-ever community vaccination center in Cebu held on Thursday, April 8.

The pilot testing involved the vaccination of medical frontliners and senior citizens.

Located at the Mandaue City Sports Complex, the local government has followed the guideline handbook prepared by the Visayas Vaccination Operations Center (VVOC) for the establishment of vaccination sites.

“Mandaue City’s adherence to the handbook of community vaccination center created by the Visayas Covid-19 Vaccination Operations Center (VVOC) shows that the manual when used properly can lead to successful implementation of vaccination rollout,” said Undersecretary Anthony Gerard “Jonji” Gonzales of the Office of the Presidential Assistant for the Visayas (OPAV).

The VVOC, through National Task Force against Covid-19 deputy chief implementer for Visayas Melquiades Feliciano, has prepared the vaccination guideline handbook to help local government units set up efficient vaccination centers.

Feliciano declared the pilot testing of the Mandaue Sports Complex vaccination center a success.

“The flow that was set from the registration area up to the post-vaccination area met the time and motion requirements. In its full capacity, it can vaccinate 800-900 individuals in eight hours or 20,000 doses in a month,” Feliciano said.

He added that the vaccination center will be replicated in similar sites in Mandaue City so it could meet the time frame of the vaccination program which is four to six months.

“When the vaccines will be available for the general population, Mandaue City will be ready to execute the program,” Feliciano said.

The VVOC team is composed of OPAV, Department of Health (DOH) Central Visayas, local government units (LGUs), and Project Balik Buhay.

During a meeting to make an assessment of the pilot testing of the community vaccination center, the VVOC team discussion focused on the improvement of the process and the storage handling.

This is to ensure smooth localized vaccination operations. It was agreed that the VVOC process which was undertaken in Mandaue will serve as the benchmark to be followed by other LGUs in the Visayas.

Meanwhile, Dr. Dominga Obenza of Mandaue City Emergency Operations Center noted that doing the vaccine rollout in a suitable area as a pilot setting tremendously improved the overall process.

“True that no plan is ever perfect, we got to see the little things that we may have overlooked, but can eventually impact on the success of this activity. The sharing of ideas is much appreciated,” Obenza said. (PR)