by Ma. Teresa Montemayor/PNA
MANILA — The Department of Health (DOH) has met its target number of young children who must be vaccinated against measles, bringing down its cases nationwide.
“We’ve reached the initial target of 3.8 million ages six months to 59 months, that was by end of March. Actually, lumagpas pa dahil may ibang lugar na nagdadag pa sila ng quota (we’ve exceeded this because some places added more quota),” DOH Undersecretary Enrique Domingo told reporters on Friday at the sidelines of the World Health Day conference in Manila City.
Domingo said the DOH is now working on the immunization of all school-aged children in their schools, particularly Kinder to Grade 6 students.
“We got about 10 percent of 5 million children but we’ll have a break during the summer from our school-based immunization, sacommunity muna sila babakunahan (they’ll be vaccinated in the community) and we’ll continue again by the start of classes in June. We added two million who are unvaccinated 12-year olds that will be immunized in the community,” he said.
While there is a downtrend of measles cases across all regions, Domingo said the DOH is yet to lift the outbreak in Metro Manila and regions of Luzon and Visayas.
“For us to say that it’s completely under control, there should be no new cases recorded for six weeks or 42 days. So, we’re just waiting, monitoring right now. Cases have been decreasing and provinces and municipalities haven’t had new cases in the past few weeks kaya lang dapat ang trend natin (however our trend) must be validated and nationwide,” he said.
Domingo added all their health workers continue to work “in the assumption that the outbreak is still ongoing”.
“We’re still continuing with the supplemental implementation while the energy is up and everybody is motivated,” he said.
