DOH to hold immunization drive vs measles

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Health (DOH) will conduct a month-long immunization campaign against measles to save 18 million children from infection.

Dr. Ed Janairo, director of the DOH’s National Center for Disease Prevention and Control, said P600 million had been allocated for the “special immunization activity” (SIA) that would run from April 4 to May 4.

“We hope that this will be the last SIA that we’ll conduct. We rather have a strong routine immunization to catch up (on) all children aged nine months to eight years,” he said in a press briefing.

World Health Organization (WHO) country representative Dr. Soe Nyunt-U said the Philippines is among six countries in Asia that still experience measles outbreaks.

The others are China, Laos, Camboadia, Vietnam and Japan. Soe said that because if this, the conduct of a SIA is very important to enable these nations to meet the target made during the 2005 World Health Assembly to eliminate measles in the region by 2012.

Under the program, health workers will visit houses to vaccinate children, on top of the immunization activities that will be done in the barangay health centers and other government healthcare facilities.

DOH Undersecretary Mario Villaverde said that in routine immunization, 20 percent of children are left out because parents fail to bring them to vaccination centers.

“What we want to do is to cover all of our targeted children because this 20-percent that we missed out still has the potential to spread the virus,” he said.

Measles outbreaks were reported in Nueva Ecija, Bulacan and Zamboanga del Norte last year. As of last month, 1,308 cases were recorded in 20 provinces.