DOH to hold national immune day

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Health (DOH) will hold national immunization activities next January for 17 million unvaccinated children below eight years old, in line with the agency’s target to eliminate measles by 2012.

Health Secretary Enrique Ona said the department has been conducting door-to-door vaccination in Pasay City, which reported some 5,600 measles cases in 2007, with the help of barangay health workers.

“Pasay City, if successful, is expected to be the first local government unit to be certified as measles-free in the country,” he said.

The Disease Surveillance Report of the DOH’s National Epidemiology Center (NEC) showed that from Jan. 1 to Oct. 9, 2010, a total of 5,175 confirmed measles cases, 21 of them deaths, were reported.

“What is regrettable is that these deaths are all vaccine preventable.

This why we will be doing measles vaccine supplement immunization activities to quickly reduce the number of susceptible children in the population,” Ona said.

Owing to massive immunization campaigns done in the past, there were no laboratory-confirmed measles cases recorded in the country from 2004 to 2006.

But in 2007, a number of cases were again reported, prompting the DOH to beef up its door-to-door vaccination programs.

Ona said another mass program must be done effectively to immunize the children who have been missed in past vaccination programs.

“The measles virus continues to circulate in many parts of the country. Therefore, I am appealing to mothers and caregivers to have your children vaccinated against measles to avoid the most serious consequence – death,” he added.