by Ma. Teresa Montemayor/PNA
The Department of Health 4-A (DOH-Calabarzon) has immunized a total of 862,237 children in the region in line with the government’s intensified anti-measles campaign.
According to the Regional Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit, the figure is equivalent to 50.9 percent of the target number of children which the agency aims to vaccinate.
In a statement, the DOH Calabarzon said 235,604 children were vaccinated in Cavite; 214,253 in Rizal; 189,433 in Laguna; 114,049 in Quezon; and 108,898 in Batangas.
Regional Director Eduardo Janairo said the agency is doing its best to reach the target children in far-flung communities and in the mountains.
“Vaccination teams in malls, fast-food chains, schools, house-to-house campaigns and fixed immunization posts in barangays (villages) continue to provide measles containing vaccine to children from six months up to six years old,” he added.
To ensure the success of its immunization drive, the agency deployed 229 nurses to the different municipalities in the region on March 1 under the Nurse Deployment Program (NDP).
NDP is one of the programs under the DOH Human Resource, which annually hires and deploys nurses, doctors, dentists, midwives, medical technologists, pharmacists and other allied health workers to geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas and other poor communities in the country to augment the shortage of health workers in these areas.
Janairo stressed that measles vaccine is one of the safest and the only protection against the measles virus that “we can provide to our children.”
“It has already saved countless of lives since it was introduced to the public in July of 1979 through the DOH Expanded Immunization Program. For parents with six months to six years old unvaccinated children, bring them to the nearest health center for them to receive the measles vaccine. It is safe and it is free”, he added.
