Frontline personnel in essential sectors or economic frontliners, including uniformed personnel, and indigent population from the National Capital Region and eight other nearby provinces will get first the vaccine against coronavirus disease once the government rolls out the inoculation for these two priority groups, the Department of Health said on Wednesday.

These groups belong to A4 and A5 priority groups in the governent's COVID-19 Vaccination Program.

"We are catching up with the volumes of vaccine, we will concentrate in what we call as geographic area where there is surge of (COVID-19) cases. So A4 and A5 in NCR Plus 8," said Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje, also the chairperson of the National Vaccination Operations Center, in the "Laging Handa" public briefing.

The eight other provinces, which the official was referring to are Bulacan and Pampanga in Region 3 (Central Luzon) and Cavite, Laguna, Rizal, and Batangas in Region IV-A (Calabarzon). Metro Manila and the eight provinces contribute more than 60 percent on the country's gross domestic product.

Earlier, National Task Force Against COVID-19 Deputy Chief Implementer Vivencio Dizon said that aside from the NCR Plus 8, individuals belonging to A4 and A5 in Metro Cebu and Metro Davao will also be given priority once the government rolls out the vaccination for the two categories.

NTF Chief Implementer and Vaccine Czar Carlito Galvez Jr. ealier said that they hope to launch the inoculation drive for the A4 and A5 groups by next month or once there is already a steady supply of the vaccine.

He said the vaccines coming from COVAX facility will be used to A1 or workers in frontline health services, A2 or all senior citizens, A3 or persons with comorbidities, and A5.

So far, the only vaccines in the country come from the COVAX facility, which are AstraZeneca and Pfizer.

Galvez said the government or private sector procured vaccines will be used to priority groups A1 to A4.

He assured that all Filipinos will receive the free COVID-19 vaccine in due time.

As of May 18, Cabotaje said the total vaccine doses that have been administered were 3,299,470, including the 2,512,000 first dose. Celerina Monte/DMS