An official of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines-Episcopal Commission on Health Care (CBCP-ECHC) on Friday assured that churches remain available as venues for vaccination against the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).

Fr. Dan Cancino, executive secretary of the commission, said churches and other places of worship are ready to help local government units in their inoculation drive.

“Our churches continue to participate in making Covid-19 vaccines accessible, especially in areas with low vaccination accomplishments. We will continue to open church spaces to allow our faithful to avail of Covid-19 vaccines,” he said in an interview over Church-run Radio Veritas.

He said that aside from making churches as vaccine venues, they will continue to help in informing the public on the benefits of being vaccinated.

“We are also putting premium on increasing vaccine confidence and lowering the hesitancy towards Covid-19 vaccines,” Cancino added.

Data from the Department of Health (DOH) showed that as of Aug. 22, almost 72.4 million Filipinos have been fully-vaccinated against Covid-19.

More than 17.7 million individuals have already received their first booster doses.

The Marcos administration is looking to administer 23 million booster shots in its first 100 days under the “PinasLakas” campaign.

So far, only 1,920,131 have been boosted, or just 8.3 percent of the target number. (PNA)