ROUGHLY one in 50 persons inoculated with a vaccine against coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) has reported adverse events following immunization (AEFI), the Department of Health Central Visayas (DOH 7) said Wednesday, March 31, 2021.
These AEFI cases were minor, said DOH 7 spokesperson Dr. Mary Jean Loreche. There were no severe AEFI cases, she added.
As of March 30, Loreche said there were 1,389 AEFI cases out of the 62,695 vaccinees in the region based on VigiFlow, a management system for recording, processing and sharing reports on AEFI.
Around 70 percent, or 972 out of the 1,389 cases, involved female vaccinees. Most of the cases involved those in the 30 to 39 age group, both male and female.
Loreche said the most common AEFI cases among those who received the Sinovac vaccine involved vaccination site pain, headache, rashes, elevated blood pressure and fever.
Among those vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine, Loreche said AEFI cases included fever, headache, body malaise, chills and muscle pain.
“So these are the adverse events, but so far, we have not received any reports of severe adverse events,” Loreche said during her daily press briefing on the vaccination program against coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
Loreche urged all vaccination units to report AEFI cases to VigiFlow.
She said only 72 facilities are reporting to VigiFlow. The others report to the Regional Vaccine Operations Center.
“It is our request to our facilities that you fill up the VigiFlow form so we can synchronize our data,” Loreche said.
Update
As of March 30, Loreche said 62,695 doses have been administered in the entire Central Visayas region.
Loreche said vaccination of health workers under Priority Group A1 is still ongoing.
There are 220 facilities that are currently administering the vaccines.
Among the four provinces in the region, Bohol posted the highest vaccine utilization rate of 96.3 percent as it has administered 21,348 for the first dose out of 22,175 doses sent to the province so far. Bohol has an allocation of 39,210 doses.
Siquijor administered 2,671, or 94 percent of the 2,842 doses that it received. Siquijor has an allocation of 5,164 doses.
Cebu, which administered the biggest number of doses at 32,518, posted a utilization rate of 90 percent out of 36,121 doses. Cebu was allocated a total of 51,042 doses.
Negros Oriental had the lowest utilization rate of 83.4 percent, having administered 6,158 doses out of 7,382 doses that arrived. Its allocation is 11,624 doses.
List of vaccinees
As of March 30, Loreche said 125,081 individuals qualified under Priority Code A1 are on the masterlist.
Of this number, 40,562 came from Bohol, 68,555 from Cebu, 11,837 from Negros Oriental and 4,127 from Siquijor.
Those under Priority Code A1 are frontline workers in health facilities both national and local, private and public, health professionals and non-professionals like students, nursing aides, janitors and barangay health workers.
Masterlisting for Group A2, composed of senior citizens aged 60 years old and above, is ongoing.
The last day of registration for senior citizens outside the National Capital Region (NCR) is on April 5.
Loreche said the vaccination of the senior citizens will start as soon as the vaccines allocated for them arrive.
“We have no notice as to the next arrival of vaccines yet,” said Loreche.
The DOH central office earlier approved the simultaneous vaccination of Groups A1, A2 and A3 to ramp up inoculations.
Group A3 is composed of persons with comorbidities. Priority will be given to those with chronic respiratory disease, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, malignancy, diabetes mellitus, obesity and chronic liver disease.
Frontline personnel in essential sectors under Group A4 and the indigent population under Group A5 will follow. (JJL)