The Philippines is raising its COVID-19 vaccination target to up to 90% of its population, immunization czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said Wednesday after the goal of herd immunity became more elusive due to the spread of the hyper-contagious coronavirus Delta variant.
From the current vaccination target of 70% or some 77 million people, Galvez said the Philippines is now eyeing to inoculate up to 90 million people by the end of the first quarter of 2022.
"Nakikita po natin mostly na baka po yung ating herd immunity...dahil sa Delta variant baka iangat natin to 80 to 90%," he said in an interview on Teleradyo.
"Iaakyat na po natin yung target dahil yun po yung recommendation ng mga expert," he said.
Herd immunity occurs when a large number of the population becomes immune to the disease, in this case, COVID-19, reducing the likelihood of its spread from person to person. But the spread of the Delta variant has made the herd immunity goal more elusive for the world as countries struggled to contain renewed surges of infections.
In the case of the Philippines, the country as of Sept. 1 has fully vaccinated only 14.1 million people against an initial target of 77 million by the end of the year.
"Yung 77 million pipilitin po namin end of the year and then yung tinatawag natin na herd immunity na 90% is by end of first quarter 2022," Galvez said.
The Philippines is battling its worst wave of infections so far, reporting over 20,000 new COVID-19 cases daily in the past few days.
The government had said that it was working on a new strategy to address COVID-19 that has infected over 2 million Filipinos since the start of the pandemic last year.
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