Thousands of students in CV to be immunized

CEBU, Philippines - Over a hundred thousand children in Central Visayas will be immunized against the highly contagious diseases this month.

The Department of Health has been giving free vaccines against measles-rubella, diphtheria and tetanus, and human papillomavirus since Monday in line with the nationwide month-long mass immunization program.

DOH-7 will launch the program on August 7 in Danao City.

The agency is urging parents to have their children, ages five years old and below, to avail of the free public school-based vaccination until August 31.

Meanwhile, human papilloma virus vaccine (HPV), which helps reduce the risk of cervical cancer, is also free at the nearest health centers for all grade 4 female students with ages 9-13 years old.

Dr. Jovette Guinal, maternal health program coordinator of DOH, said the school-based immunization includes Measles Containing Vaccine (MCV), Tetanus and diphtheria (Td) and measles-rubella (MR). MCV, a catch-up immunization, aims to “interrupt” current measles transmission, while Td is booster immunity.

She said at least 46,000 from Cebu and 17,000 from Negros will benefit the HPV while some of the 1.3 million kinder to grade 6 children in the region will also benefit the MCV and Td vaccines.

“Many of these children are either unvaccinated or did not receive two doses of MVC. They were born before the second dose of measles was included in the routine immunization service and they may have missed the 2004, 2007 and 2011 measles immunization campaigns,” she said.

To avoid redundancy, parents are encouraged to bring with them their children’s vaccination cards. The card would be the basis how much dosage of vaccines (utmost two doses) will be given to the child. For those who have not tried vaccination yet, they will be given two doses.

Dr. Berna Ysulan, supervising dentist of the Department of Education-7, assured parents that the vaccines are “safe.”

“These vaccines have no adverse effects to your children and these are safe. You don’t have to worry,” she said.

Guinal said mild reactions will be experienced after vaccination. These are fever, rashes or swelling at the injection site.

Guinal stressed that if the child is experiencing high fever or other signs of serious disease, he/she cannot undergo vaccination unless it is only mild infection.

DOH in collaboration with DepEd is targeting around 4.5 million children nationwide to benefit the immunization program.

The number is broken down into 2.4 million grade 1 students for MCV and Td; 1.7 million grade7 for MR and Td; and 327,444 grade 4 girls aged 9-13 years old from 20 priority poorest provinces.

These provinces are Cebu, Negros Oriental, Negros Occidental, Leyte, Eastern Samar, Northern Samar, Iloilo, North Cotabato, Sarangani, Lanaodel Sur, Davao Oriental, Camarines Sur, Quezon, Sulu, Maguindanao, Zambaonga  del Sur, Masbate, Pangasinan, Ifugao and Apayao. —(FREEMAN)