FOLLOWING the measles outbreak in Davao City, the regional office of the Department of Health (DOH 11) recorded a total of 39 patients who died of the viral disease out of the 1,289 suspected measles cases from November 2017 to May 18 this year.
Evelyn Hauac, DOH 11 National Immunization program manager, said during the Kapehan sa Dabaw at The Annex Building of SM City Monday, May 21, that most of the fatalities were from Davao City.
In the same period, based on the reports submitted to the Regional Epidemiology Surveillance Unit, they also noted a total of 143 patients who are clinically confirmed to have measles based on the symptoms they are showing.
Davao City has the highest number of patients with suspected measles at 797. Davao del Norte is second with 234, Compostela Valley with 130, Davao Oriental (71), Davao del Sur (33), and Davao Occidental (24).
The DOH launched anew its National Measles Supplemental Immunization (SIA) dubbed as Ligtas Tigdas which aims to curb the spread of measles through the provision of free vaccination among infants and children 6 to 59 months.
“Vaccination has been proven to be the most effective public intervention. Since the last mass immunization campaign in 2014, there has been a significant reduction in measles transmission,” Hauac said.
However, measles cases have again began to spread in the last quarter of 2017 that led to Outbreak Response Immunization (ORI) early of this year where children ages 6 months to 59 months were given anti-measles vaccine.
The activity will run from May 9 to June 8 in Mindanao regions. Davao region should mop up activities to ensure that no child is left unprotected from measles since it started the Outbreak Response Immunization last December.
DOH 11 targets to immunize 288,501 individuals all over the region. This year’s Expanded Program on Immunization budget amounts to P1.2 million for the procurement of vaccines and syringes and these were already at the central office of the Health department.
She likewise emphasized the need to immunize children twice with anti-measles so that they will be able to reach the maximum protection and be fully immune to the disease. With this they want to inform the parents to come back after a few months so that their children will not get infected.
Some of the reasons cited why there were children who were not able to get vaccinated sometimes were because the child is sick during the scheduled vaccination, and immunization needs to be postponed but the parents forgot to come back; the parents or guardians are too busy; the parents or guardian moves from one place to another.
Other factor cited why measles spread in the region is there are a lot of travelers that visit the region and some of them might be carrying or having measles and an unvaccinated child or person is exposed.