AMID the threat of a measles outbreak, the Department of Health (DOH) is planning to intensify government’s immunization program to reach as many children as possible.
This involves enhancing regular, school-based immunization activities and starting a community-based vaccination drive early next year.
The DOH has said all 17 regions in the country are considered at high risk for the measles outbreak. DOH data showed 489 measles cases reported from January 1 to October 1, which is 167 percent higher than the cases recorded during the same period last year.
Dr Alethea de Guzman, director of the DOH Epidemiology Bureau, said the department is targeting to encourage as many parents as possible to have their kids vaccinated against measles.
“We remind everybody that getting vaccinated is a way to prevent and avoid the spread of non-COVID diseases like measles,” she said in an online press briefing last Friday.
In a separate press briefing, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said intensifying the measles immunization program means enhancing their school-based immunization drives for elementary students in the coming months.
“We will continue to hold school-based immunization that are being done regularly. The school-based immunization activities are for those Grades 1 to 7,” Vergeire, DOH officer-in-charge, said last week.
On community-based vaccination activities, Vergeire said, “We will go to the communities come March so we can reach more children less than five years old needing the vaccines.”
De Guzman, on the DOH report that all 17 regions in the country are considered to be at high risk for the measles outbreak, said this is primarily due to the low immunization rate seen among children over the recent years.
“If we take into account the years before 2021, we have over 3 million. That is a large number of children that are not vaccinated,” said De Guzman.
In addition, she said, a measles outbreak in the country usually occurs every four to five years. with the last measles outbreaks seen in 2014 and in 2018 to 2019.
“This is why we are projecting an impending outbreak possibly in the next year or two if we fail to increase our vaccination coverage,” she said.
