With its vaccination drive in full swing, the Quezon City government continues its preparation for the inclusion of the pediatric population with co-morbidities.

The city government has opened its registration for minors with co-morbidities while waiting for vaccine supply. Parents or guardians of these minors may register them at the QCVaxEasy website: www.qceservices.quezoncity.gov.ph/qcvaxeasy, or through their respective barangays.

Mayor Joy Belmonte has been pushing for the vaccination of minors to ensure their safety.

“Now that we are close to reaching our 1.7million target population of fully vaccinated eligible individuals, it is high time that we expand our vaccination drive to children with co-morbidities who, like the individuals with co-morbidities belonging to A3, are also highly at risk of getting sick with the virus,” Mayor Belmonte said.

“For months we have been focused on inoculating 80% of Quezon City’s adult population or 1.7 million individuals 18 and above and we have now vaccinated close to 200 thousand more than that target. It is now time to shift our attention to minors because they are also vulnerable to the virus. Moreover, they comprise about 30% of the city’s approximately 3.1 million population and it is impossible to achieve population protection, which requires vaccination of 80% of our total population without including them,” she added.

Minors aged 12-17 with existing co-morbidities shall be tagged under Pediatric A3 in the list of priority sectors. Co-morbidities include medical complexity, genetic conditions, neurologic conditions, metabolic/endocrine diseases, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, HIV infection, tuberculosis, chronic respiratory diseases, renal disorders, hepatobiliary diseases, and those who are immunocompromised due to disease or treatment.

Dr. Malu Eleria of the QC Task Force Vax to Normal said that only Pfizer and Moderna have been approved for the inoculaton of minors.

“Since we are starting the registration process, we will be requesting for the allocation of vaccines from the national government depending on the list of registrants generated,” Dr. Eleria said.

As for the rest of the pediatric population, the city government shall announce soon when their registration will start. Coordination meetings with private and public schools are also ongoing to begin the identification of possible vaccination sites in their school grounds. For interested private schools, they may submit a letter of intent to the QCProtektodo Team at qcprotektodo@quezoncity.gov.ph.

To register for the vaccination of minors with co-morbidities, one should visit www.qceservices.quezoncity.gov.ph/qcvaxeasy; select register for a vaccination; fill up the necessary information of the minor, select A3 Pediatric with co-morbidity; and accept all electronic form consents.

Meanwhile, the Department of Health has started rolling out its vaccination drive for minors with co-morbidities in 9 hospitals in Metro Manila, 4 of which are Quezon City hospitals namely National Children’s Hospital, Philippine Heart Center, Philippine Children’s Medical Center, and Fe Del Mundo Hospital. The selected vaccinees are patients of the said hospitals.

As of 8 am of October 16, a total of 3,417,523 vaccines have been administered by the QC government. 1,884,264 or 110.84% of the 1.7 million target population to achieve population protection have received at least their first dose while 1,626,989 or 95.45% of the same target are considered fully vaccinated.

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