‘No parental consent, no vaccination’

MANILA, Philippines — Only children with parental consent can avail themselves of the government’s free immunization program, the Department of Health (DOH) said yesterday.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said the DOH would continue to provide free vaccination to school-age children from kindergarten to Grade 7 using the school-based platform.

“Only learners with parental consent will be vaccinated after a quick health assessment and evaluation of their immunization status against measles,” Duque noted.

The health secretary, however, encouraged mothers and caregivers to avail themselves of the government’s free immunization services to protect their children from vaccine-preventable diseases.

The DOH is implementing school-based immunization as a strategy to reach older children and adolescents, according to Duque.

“It is a platform to provide a second opportunity for vaccination and an excellent platform that integrates other public health interventions, like mass deworming,” he explained.

With the program, the DOH hopes to immunize a total of 9,913,032 schoolchildren.

During the launch of the program last week, 2,259 Grade 7 students were targeted for measles vaccination and booster shots of tetanus-diphtheria.

The DOH is also targeting to immunize 58,037 Grades 1-7 pupils and students from Valenzuela City. Of the number, 14,967 will be given booster shots of tetanus-diphtheria and 3,473 Grade 4 female pupils will be given the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine.

Duque said the school-based immunization program would continue until September.

Counting on public trust

Pleased by an improving public sentiment over vaccines, Duque is counting on the public’s trust as he led a measles vaccination program in Valenzuela yesterday.

Duque led the DOH’s school-based immunization program at the Apolonia Rafael Elementary School in Barangay Mapulang Lupa, where 58,037 grade school pupils were injected with measles vaccines as the department seeks to avoid a repeat of the measles outbreak in Metro Manila early this year.

Duque expressed relief that for the new school year, parents are now more convinced of the benefits of early vaccination for their children, following the Dengvaxia vaccine scare blamed on the widespread publicity of Public Attorney’s Office chief Persida Acosta in assisting the families of children who died of dengue symptoms following the administration of the vaccine.

The DOH has attributed the measles outbreak – a 550 percent increase of measles cases in Metro Manila from Jan. 1 to Feb. 6 this year compared with the same period last year – to the low vaccination coverage following the vaccine scare.

“This is a total turnaround from what it used to be during the height of the Dengvaxia scare. I hope parents will not bring their children out of fear, but because of trust and confidence on the vaccine,” Duque said.

Duque added that he would support the passage of a bill that would make immunization mandatory for students before they enter school, but admitted this has to go through public consultations first.

Accompanying her five-year-old daughter, Criselda Palongo admitted being scared of vaccines due to the Dengvaxia fiasco, but said she has since regained her trust in the government’s immunization program.

“I was scared because of the news. If it’s Dengvaxia vaccine, I’d rather not have them vaccinated because it’s difficult to trust the vaccine. But other than that, my trust on other vaccines had not waned,” said Palongo, whose daughter had been hit by measles and chicken pox because she was not vaccinated. – With Marc Jayson Cayabyab