ILOILO City – The Department of Health (DOH) in Western Visayas vaccinated 30,859 children on the first day of its Measles-Rubella and oral polio mass immunization.
Dr. Daphynie Teorima, DOH Region 6’s child health and national immunization program medical coordinator, said the first day (Feb. 1) turnout of the region-wide campaign was so far the highest in the Visayas.
“Kita ang nagapanguna. So far, manami ang aton status kag tani ma-maintain ta ang amo na nga progress and do even better,” Teorima said.
For the whole Western Visayas, DOH-6 targets to cover 660,406 children aged nine months to five years old for measles-rubella vaccination and 770,279 children five years old and below for oral polio vaccination.
The target number for the free immunization, according to Teorima, was provided by the DOH central office based on the region’s projected population for 2020.
With the threat of coronavirus disease 2019, Teorima said the strategy was modified from what used to be a house-to-house vaccination.
Now, there is a fixed site such as health centers, with schedules.
“Hopefully matapos naton as soon as possible para ma-lessen man ang risk sang aton mga health workers sa community,” Teorima said.
She assured the public that DOH-6’s vaccines are safe, saying these are regulated commodities that undergo clinical trials.
“Our measles, rubella, and polio vaccines have been perfected since they were produced in the 1930s,” she said.
However, Teorima acknowledged several adverse reactions like fever after six to 12 days of the injection and allergy and infection at the injection site, but these rarely happen.
Teorima said the risk is high if children are not vaccinated.
With the case of measles, complications include pneumonia leading to death, hearing defects that could lead to difficulty in learning, and encephalitis.
To make sure that the immunization coverage is high this year, DOH-6 partnered with stakeholders such as local government units and the Philippine Pediatric Society for the massive information dissemination./PN
