WITH the intense immunization campaign against measles, the Department of Health (DOH) reported around 3.7 million children of ages six months to five years old all over the country who already received their vaccination in a span of two months.
According to DOH Undersecretary Rolando Enrique Domingo, this comprise of the 97 percent of their primary target of 3.8 million children.
“Meron din tayong na mga school age children, ito yung kinder hanggang grade 6 na another 800,000 at may older children pa. All in all, mga five million bata na ang ating nabakunahan (we have school age children, these are kinder up to grade 6, composing of another 800,000 and there have been older children, too. All in all, there are about five million children vaccinated),” Domingo said.
In Northern Mindanao, Nimfa Torrizo, DOH-Northern Mindanao director, said they have recorded 1,268 cases of measles and 131,157 persons who have already been vaccinated.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque, for his part, shared that this year’s immunization campaign have garnered better results than last year’s as for the span of eight months (from April to December of 2018), they only achieved 36 percent vaccine coverage nationwide.
“This is a reflection of the resurgence or the confidence in the immunization program of the DOH,” Duque said.
School-based immunization is still ongoing, according to Domingo, as there are still 7 million children who have not received their measles vaccination and another 2 million who are older than 12 years old.