DOH extends campaign on measles vaccination

CEBU, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) has extended its immunization drive against measles, rubella, and polio nationwide until June 15.

DOH’s Chikiting Ligtas 2023 was launched last April 27, and the campaign was supposed to end last Wednesday.

The health department decided to extend the campaign in order to reach the remaining 2.3 million among nine to 59 months unvaccinated children with Measles and Rubella (MR) vaccines as it needed to achieve the 95-percent target coverage of the Supplementary Immunization Activity (SIA).

The Chikiting Ligtas campaign is part of the Measles Rubella and Bivalent Oral Polio virus Vaccine Supplementary Immunization Activities (MR-BOPV SIA) aimed to accelerate its catch-up activity to have the children who missed out their routine immunization due to the COVID-19 pandemic vaccinated.

According to UNICEF, around 67 million children globally missed out entirely or partially on routine immunization between 2019 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Philippines is second in East Asia and the Pacific Region with the highest number of children with zero doses, and fourth (4th) in the world.

For the Chikiting Ligtas campaign, the DOH is allocating funds for Centers for Health Development’s hiring of vaccinators, risk communications and advocacy activities, and delivery of vaccines and other supplies.

As an aid to the campaign, the WHO and UNICEF support the Department by providing assistance in procuring vaccines, deploying additional health staff, engaging with communities to address hesitancy and misinformation, and building cold chain capacities, among others.

The DOH-7, for its part, targets to vaccinate nearly one million children ages zero to 59 months old against measles, rubella, and polio in Central Visayas.

Data from DOH shows that it targets to vaccinate 689,059 kids ages nine months to 59 months old against measles and rubella while 309,245 kids ages zero to 59 months old against polio.

As of yesterday, the DOH-7 has still to release the data as to the actual numbers of children vaccinated against measles, rubella and polio. — GAN (FREEMAN)