THE Davao City Health Office (CHO) will be more aggressive on its poliovirus immunization coverage in the city to surpass accomplishments during the first round of the citywide mass vaccination dubbed as Sabayang Patak Kontra Polio.
CHO head Dr. Josephine Villafuerte, in an interview Monday, November 25, 2019, said they crafted new measures for all children below five years old in the city to be vaccinated.
The second round kicked off Monday, November 25, while the first round was held last October 14 to 27.
Villafuerte said they will deploy personnel in three major checkpoints in the city, namely, Lasang, Sirawan, and Lacson. They will also continue the conduct of vaccination in all health centers and house-to-house visitation.
Health workers will also be positioned in malls to make vaccination more accessible.
She said the target children for the second round will be the same children who were vaccinated during the first round. But those children who were not able to be vaccinated in the first round will still be given the first dose.
"They will have to get the second and the third also to finish the third doses pero kung wala sila, they can come and have the second. The approach now is we will do the same, patak sabay, the house to house patak center, we have centers, the malls, the terminals," she said.
Villafuerte said the target is still the same at 186,000 children. For the first round, they reached 99.48 percent coverage and they aim to have the same coverage or more since it will be Mindanao-wide.
They also addressed their concern for the gated subdivision as the health workers were given a certain time of the day to go there to immunize the children.
"This won't be a problem anymore because we are also working with PPS (Philippine Pediatric Society) so mag-open din ang mga hospitals. There are more hospitals now na magbigay ng patak polio sponsored by the PPS," she added.
She also assured that they have enough supply of vaccines and urged the parents to get their children vaccinated on the scheduled dates.
"Ang supply complete siya so gi-awhag namo tanan to have the children immunized up to December 7 because after December 7 WHO (World Health Organization) is going to pull (back) the medicine for the second phase then bring it back again for the third round on January 18," she said.