Zamboanga City intensifies immunization program

By R. G. Antonet Go/PNA

ZAMBOANGA CITY — The City Health Office (CHO) is intensifying its immunization campaign to ensure the protection of infants aged nine months to one-year-old from illness.

This came as local health officials are apprehensive over the increasing number of newborns probably becoming more susceptible to illness since there is a continuous decline in the rate of fully-immunized infants in the past years.

Corazon Pagotaisidro, CHO immunization program coordinator, on Saturday disclosed they have launched a house-to-house immunization drive, especially in far-flung areas.

CHO is targeting to immunize 24,030 infants for the year 2018. Of the total, the health office has already immunized 16,879 infants as of the third quarter of this year.

Pagotaisidro said the vaccines given to the infants include three doses of Oral Polio Vaccine, three doses of Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine, Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG), Hepatitis B, and three doses of Pentavalent vaccines.

She noted that the number of fully immunized newborn has steadily declined since 2015.

“It’s a risky situation. One reason why there was an outbreak of measles is that the immunization rate is declining,” she said.

She said the Dengvaxia scare is one of the reasons why there was a continuous decline in the rate of fully-immunized infants in this city. The other reason was that the family are transients.

She advised parents not to be apprehensive since the vaccines used to immunize infants are 100 percent safe.

Pagotaisidro said the vaccines used to immunized infants are not new ones, such as Dengvaxia that reportedly had resulted in adverse effects on children.

Popular

PBBM: No ‘political advantage’ behind disclosure of flood control mess in SONA 2025

By Dean Aubrey Caratiquet In the fifth episode of the BBM Podcast aired on Monday, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. shared his insights on the...

PBBM touts education as the key towards national, social progress

By Dean Aubrey Caratiquet “Every project, every policy, every program, every peso must move the needle for Filipino families.” Halfway through his term as the country’s...

On Teachers’ Month, DepEd notes good news for teachers

By Brian Campued As the Philippines joins the global community in honoring the invaluable contributions of teachers in shaping the next generation’s leaders and professionals,...

Phivolcs identifies fault that caused magnitude 6.9 Cebu quake

By Brian Campued State seismologists have located the source of the powerful offshore earthquake that jolted northern Cebu and the rest of Visayas on Sept....