THE Cebu City Government has resumed its vaccination program for children in the 80 barangays, six months since the Covid-19 pandemic began.

The Cebu City Health Department has resumed its vaccination program as a way to protect the city’s children from treatable diseases such as measles and polio.

Dr. Jeffrey Ibones, CCHD head, told reporters that their yearly vaccination program in the barangays had to be postponed after the national government started implementing quarantine measures nationwide in March when the pandemic began.

With Cebu City now under modified general community quarantine (MGCQ), they’ve decided to continue with the vaccination program, with most of their personnel in full force to ensure that all children are vaccinated as soon as possible.

Dr. Judibeth Buenaventura, CCHD’s national immunization program coordinator, said they are targeting to vaccinate at least 5,000 children from the 80 barangays.

Buenaventura said that aside from the Cebu City Government, other rural health units across the region also had to postpone their yearly vaccination programs because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 2019, CCHD secured a 92 percent compliance with its immunization campaign after vaccinating 21,353 children. The City was supposed to vaccinate at least 27,000 kids in 2019. / PAC / JKV