PARENTS of children that have yet to undergo the measles-rubella and polio vaccine have nothing to fear in terms of the quality of vaccine that will be used by the Department of Health (DOH).

Tolits Villanueva, president of Rotary Club of Baguio Summer Capital (RCBSC), said parents should not worry about the quality of these vaccines as most of the negative things they have heard are false information.

“What Rotary pushes for is for newly born children to undergo vaccination. This will depend on our partners if they would be able to pinpoint a barangay that needs help for a specific vaccine which, in turn, we act on. The End Polio Movement is just one of the vaccination campaigns that we continue to pursue, among others, like during the meningococcemia pandemic that happened in Baguio City,” Villanueva said.

RCBSC Chapter President Doctor Virgilio Bautista reiterated the importance of media organizations in helping deliver the correct information to the public, particularly on vaccine-preventable diseases like measles and polio.

“The people need to be aware because the more the people are aware, particularly here in the Cordillera Region, the more confident they are that what we do is for the good of the community. The advantage of Rotary here in northern and central Luzon is that we have around 95 clubs doing the same thing in their own areas, which is why it is better to work with other groups rather than us doing it alone, particularly on informing the home public,” Bautista said.

From January to September 2020, DOH-Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) recorded 395 measles cases in the region with zero deaths compared to 1,059 cases recorded in the same period in 2019 with five deaths, or a 62-percent decrease.

DOH-CAR is part of phase 1 of the nationwide measles-rubella polio vaccination campaign, which is set to conduct its regional vaccination campaign from October 26 to November 25, 2020. The second phase is set to be conducted in February next year.