THE Department of Health (DOH) in Davao Region has increased its manpower to be deployed at health centers in Davao City to perform measles outbreak response immunization until next month.
Health Planning and Medical Specialist Dr. Raquel Montejo said the department has created and deployed at least 35 teams to 182 barangays in Davao City to immunize children.
Montejo said there are still 198,751 children in Davao City aged six to 59 months to be immunized.
As per report in December 2017, the number of children that have been vaccinated is at 15,071, and as of January 23 this year, the health centers had covered almost 40,000 children.
"Presently, ongoing pa yung daily reporting ng Davao City for the number of children vaccinated. The plan is to do the outbreak response immunization until February 7," Montejo said.
DOH-Davao has appealed to parents to submit their children to government-sponsored measles immunization after it received report that four children had died from the viral disease.
Montejo said the department aims to reduce the morbidity and mortality among children against the most common vaccine-preventable diseases with its response immunization following the measles outbreak in Davao City.
The districts that had the most reported measles cases as per January 18 report were District C (covering barangays 21-C up to 30-C) with 48, followed with 28 in Buhangin, 26 in Talomo North, 23 in Talomo Central, 22 in Agdao, 15 in Talomo South, and 14 in Bunawan area.
As per January 12 report, there were 224 cases identified with measles infection in Davao region, of which 119 of those infected were not vaccinated. Many of the reported cases were from Davao City.
In 2017, there were 17 confirmed measles cases and one in 2018 in Davao City.
The definition of “outbreak” according to the measles program at national level is that one confirmed measles case is already an outbreak.