Vaccination against COVID-19 in the country has slowed down in the past week, a health official reported on Saturday.

"We are closely monitoring, because for different reasons our vaccination has slightly slowed down in the past week," said Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje in Saturday's ''Laging Handa'' virtual public briefing.

Cabotaje said unlike previous vaccinations where the total number of persons inoculated reached around one to 1.5 million, the present vaccination only reached to the maximum of 300,000.

The DOH website said on March 5, a total of 21, 395 persons were vaccinated. Fully vaccinated persons reached 63, 681, 927.

"Because it is now hard to reach the other segments of our population, this is why we are doing recalibration strategies," she said.

Cabotaje said the recalibration will be done by areas and it will be monitored by the Department of Health (DOH) and the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).

As the focus of the local government is expected to be divided when the local campaign starts on March 25, Cabotaje said the government is ramping up its vaccination before the start of the local campaign period.

The government is planning to tap the private sector and other groups and agencies to help in the vaccination.

"What is important is before the March campaign period we should ramp up our vaccination then after that if the attention is already divided let us tap our other partners, our private sector, our civil society organizations, even the other government agencies to help in the vaccination," she said. Robina Asido/DMS