Article by:
Ma. Teresa Montemayor
MANILA – The government is mulling carrying out house-to-house vaccination in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) to increase the number of persons protected against the coronavirus, the Department of Health (DOH) said Wednesday.
In a message to reporters, the DOH said aside from the house-to-house vaccination it called "suyod", other planned activities include the holding of information caravans, dialogues with persons who refuse vaccination, provision of "ayuda" for persons willing to be vaccinated and radio plugging in the region.
The BARMM health authorities assured the Islamic community that Covid-19 vaccines are certified by the Philippine Halal Certification Board as "Halal" or permissible to the Islam faith.
On Tuesday, National Vaccination Operations Center (NVOC) chief Myrna Cabotaje noted that religion is not the major reason for the low inoculation turnout in the BARMM since Muslim countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia have high vaccination rates.
Among the challenges in the vaccination rollout in BARMM are vaccine hesitancy or vaccine preference; limited manpower; fake news dissemination; late submission of daily vaccination report; and lukewarm support from local chief executives (LCEs) and barangay local government units (BLGUs).
To address these, the government is planning to provide additional staff for data management and hire IT technicians and provide prepaid Wi-Fi and load allowance to ensure on-time submission of daily vaccination reports.
“We will ask support from Municipal Mayor, Head of Offices and BLGU and to capacitate and require them to perform their functions in data management, to monitor and evaluate their roles and functional capacity in every bakuna center, and conduct Resbakuna to barangays with less conflict where security and safety is observed,” the DOH said. (PNA)
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