Filipinos' hesitancy in taking vaccine against COVID-19 has gone down to 10%, Health Undersecretary and treatment czar Leopoldo Vega said on Sunday.

"At the start talaga, since last year, meron talagang hesitancy 'yan na mga 30%, although bumaba na ngayon, nasa 10% na lang," he said in a Super Radyo dzBB interview.

[At the start, since last year, vaccine hesitancy was at about 30%, but it has already gone down to 10%.]

Vega pointed out that the government is looking for ways to encourage this 10% vaccine-hesitant population to get the COVID-19 jabs, through house-to-house efforts and continuous vaccination drives.

On Saturday, the Department of Health said that the government fell short of the five-million vaccination target of the third wave of the "Bayanihan, Bakunahan" national vaccination drive from February 10 to 18.

Only 3.5 million individuals were inoculated against COVID-19 at the conclusion of drive, the DOH noted.

Vega said that one of the reasons why the government did not reach its five million quota was that inoculation is still slow particularly in certain areas in the Mindanao region affected by Typhoon Odette.

He however assured the public that despite the Bayanihan, Bakunahan III's shortfall, the vaccination drive in the country will still continue to get at least 77 million Filipinos vaccinated by the end of March.

He also called the senior citizens or those in the A2 category to get the jab as only 65% of them are vaccinated.

"Kailangan talaga nating i-increase ang ating paghahanap sa mga seniors na 'to kasi sila 'yung very vulnerable at tsaka kailangan kasi 'yung COVID na 'to, hindi natin malaman, sila 'yung unang matatamaan talaga," he added.

[We need to increase the efforts to look for the senior citizens because they are very vulnerable and they are primarily at risk for COVID-19.]

He added that there are AstraZeneca doses that will expire by the end of February and early March, thus the government is aiming to administer them particularly in areas with low vaccination rates.

The government is eyeing to fully vaccinate 90 million Filipinos by the time President Rodrigo Duterte steps down from office on June 30.

On Saturday the Philippines logged another lowest daily COVID-19 tally this year with 1,923 COVID-19 cases, increasing the nationwide tally to 3,650,748. --LBG, GMA News