Visayas region ready as one community for its massive vax program

MINERVA BC NEWMAN

CEBU CITY – The Visayas region is one community for the massive vaccination program as its local government units (LGUs) reached a significant milestone in its COVID-19 response by adopting the Visayas Vaccination Operations Center (VVOC) Manual created by the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF)-Visayas in accordance with the guidelines set by the government’s national vaccination programs.

From its successful pilot rollout in Cebu province, the vaccination manual has since been made available to the LGUs in Central, Eastern and Western Visayas that aims to capacitate them in preparing for the vaccination of their general population.

“With the culmination of the VVOC Manual rollout in the Visayas, I now declare Visayas is ready for community vaccination,” Office of the Presidential Assistant for the Visayas (OPAV) Secretary Michael Lloyd Dino said.

Dino believed that the Visayas is going in the right direction with the cooperation of its leaders to use the VVOC Manual for the smooth, easy implementation of the community vaccination program.

Dino also highlighted the Cebu-based public-private sector collaboration through the Project Balik Buhay (PBB) program in in the regions’ responses/fight against the pandemic.  This group was formed to address the impact of the COVID-19 crisis.

Cebuano businessman Edmund Liu who chairs the PBB credited much of the response efforts to the national government’s continuous support to address the pandemic at its height since last year.

“It’s the leadership between the private and public sectors that really brought us together, gave us clear directives, set our goals and charted our way to recovery,” Liu said.

Liu narrated how the PBB became a key implementing group for COVID-19 measures in Cebu and eventually to other parts of the region that included the initial responses to the pandemic until today on the vaccination phase.

“The LGUs and everybody came together and collaborated to come up with solutions. We are working our way towards vaccinating a big part of our population so we can finally and gradually safely reopen our economies,” Liu said,

Since April, OPAV has traversed through regional and provincial borders to meet all of governors and mayors in the Visayas to help guide the LGUs in their community vaccination. The Department of Health (DOH-7) led by Regional Director Dr. Jaime Bernadas and its Chief Pathologist Dr. Mary Jean Loreche have been supportive to the OPAV’s COVID-19 initiatives since last year.

Dino also acknowledged the efforts of Gen. Feliciano and his wife Mia, who is a medical professional for their tireless efforts in creating the VVOC Manual as well as the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) Manual, which were designed to help LGUs address the medical aspect of the COVID-19 crisis.

Dino already expressed optimism to vaccinate a big chunk of the Visayas by the end of 2021, granting the availability of more vaccines, which is being worked on by the national government.

Dino spearheaded the creation of the VVOC, which is headquartered in Mandaue City, Cebu, in cooperation with both public and private sectors in an aim to unify and streamline the vaccination throughout the Visayas region. (Photos/OPAV)