UP Los Baños now a COVID-19 vaccination site too
MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Higher Education said Wednesday that the University of the Philippines in Los Baños, Laguna has been tapped as an additional COVID-19 vaccination center.
In a release, CHED Chairman Prospero de Vera III said UPLB administrators met with the local governments of Los Baños and Bay, within whose boundaries the campus is found.
The state-run institution offered its Copeland Gymnasium for the move. Residents in the said municipalities, as well as members of the university community belonging to government's priority groups, have already received their first dose.
“We responded to CHED’s commitment with the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines to have the facilities of higher education institutions as vaccination centers for the country’s expanded immunization program," said UPLB Chancellor Jose Camacho Jr.
CHED added that UPLB medical professionals and support personnel were also tapped to assist local governments in speeding up vaccinations.
The agency announced this month that 17 more colleges and universities offered their facilities for inoculation efforts.
Most of these institutions were also cleared to hold limited in-person classes for medical and health-allied programs. The Duterte administration allowed this, citing the need for the training of would-be health workers to continue amid the pandemic.
"So retrofitting the campuses serves a double purpose," De Vera said in a March 30 government briefing in Filipino. "It's not just so they can hold limited face-to-face classes, but also to help with the government's vaccine drive."
As April comes to a close, figures from the Department of Health showed more than 240,000 Filipinos fully-vaccinated while 1.56 million already got their first dose.
That would be 35,320 people on a daily average in some 3,415 sites, according to the DOH.
Administration officials have repeatedly claimed that the country is third in Southeast Asia with the highest number of doses given. They would not say, however, that only around 1% of the population have been vaccinated, two months since the jabs arrived.
- Latest
- Trending
