Post-graduate or undergraduate interns, clinical clerks, fourth-year medicine and nursing students can now take part in the COVID-19 vaccination program, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) said on Saturday.
Under Joint Memorandum Circular No. 2021-003 issued by the CHED and the Department of Health (DOH), these students can volunteer as health screeners, vaccinators, pre or post vaccination monitors under the supervision and training of licensed physicians and nurses.
“The government is now fast tracking the vaccination roll-out as more COVID-19 vaccines arrive in the country. As we increase the number of vaccination sites and increase daily targets, these additional vaccinators and support staff are critical to achieve herd immunity in the next two months,” CHED Chairperson Prospero De Vera III said in a statement.
The government earlier announced that National Vaccination Days would be held from November 29 to December 1, with the aim of administering 15 million jabs.
CHED said it has been pushing for a school-based vaccination in all big private and public higher education institutions (HEIs) since October. There are currently 61 HEIs functioning as vaccination centers.
“While more than one million college students have already been vaccinated, this is only about 30% of the target number. We need to rapidly vaccinate more students,” De Vera said.
The commission assured that the students’ volunteer work and completed number of hours will be credited in their internship, adding that it will be certified by the head of the vaccination team in the particular vaccination site where they rendered their services.
The voluntary participation of these students in vaccination sites will be implemented regardless of the area’s risk classification as categorized by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF).
All CHED regional offices have been ordered to work with HEIs that have medicine and nursing programs to produce an inventory of student-volunteer vaccinators and work with the DOH and local governments to assign these student volunteers to the various vaccination sites.
The National Task Force Against COVID-19 said on Friday that the country administered a record 1,239,981 doses of COVID-19 vaccines on November 11. — VBL, GMA News
Medical, nursing students can now be COVID-19 vaccinators, says CHED
Source: Balita News
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