Mayor Isko Moreno welcomes Manila Prince Hotel as 19th vaccination site in city

Manila Mayor Isko Moreno inspects the Manila Prince Hotel eyed to be the 19th vaccination site for the nation's capital. (Manila PIO photo)

CALOOCAN CITY, May 15 (PIA) -- Manila Mayor Franciso "Isko Moreno" Domagoso, along with Manila Health Department (MHD) chief Dr. Arnold "Poks" Pangan, on Friday inspected one more vaccination site for the city against COVID-19--the Manila Prince Hotel.

The Manila Prince Hotel, which is located along San Marcelino Street in Ermita, Manila, is set to be the 19th vaccination site for the nation's capital.

Aside from its already existing 18 vaccination sites, the City Government of Manila has also been conducting home service vaccinations for bedridden residents.

With this new development, Domagoso once again highlighted the need to speed up the mass vaccination against COVID-19.

"Once you have vaccines, you have to deploy them fast. Vaccination should be faster than infection," he stated. "'Yan talaga ang policy namin sa simula pa lang. Hindi na talaga namin pinapatagal sa storage."

Manila City Engineer Armand Andres, Manila City Architect Pepito D. Balmores, and Manila Prince Hotel liaison officer Marvin Kim Tan were also present at the site inspection.

Domagoso reiterated that the City of Manila continues to work with the National Government in its mass vaccination efforts. "We thank the national government for Manila's vaccine allocations. We continue to support all their efforts in the fight against COVID-19," the mayor said.

As of 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 13, the City of Manila--through the MHD and its six district hospitals--have deployed a total of 151,659 vaccine doses for the A1, A2, and A3 priority groups. The mass vaccination for these groups are ongoing.

So far, the vaccines allocated to Manila by the national government are those from the COVAX facility (AstraZeneca and Pfizer), the Chinese Government (Sinovac), and Russia's Gamaleya Institute (Sputnik V).

The City of Manila is also waiting for the 800,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine from British–Swedish multinational pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.

To recall, Domagoso signed in February the authorization for the release of P38.4 million as 20 percent advance payment for the AstraZeneca vaccines, which are expected to arrive either by June or September. (PIA NCR)

Source: Philippines Information Agency (pia.gov.ph)