Iloilo City—The Department of Health (DOH) in Western Visayas committed to step up its ongoing efforts to immunize children, after the region was called out for its low vaccination rate during President Marcos’ State of the Nation Address (SONA) last Monday, July 22.
In a statement over the weekend, DOH regional director Dr. Adriano Suba-an said they are taking measures to expand quality immunization services, increase coverage, and boost demand generation and multi-sectoral support across Western Visayas.
“We are strengthening surveillance and response, building supervision, monitoring and evaluation, and instituting supportive governance, financing, and regulatory measures,” Dr. Suba-an explained.
The DOH-Western Visayas statement did not address the specific factors contributing to the low vaccination rate in the region. However, they outlined several activities aimed at increasing the number of vaccinated children.
These include the Bivalent Oral Polio Vaccine Intensive Catch-Up Immunization activity from March to July 2024, during which 252,524 children aged 24 to 59 months and 135,033 children aged zero to 23 months were inoculated.
In addition, the DOH is conducting training for Health Education and Promotion Officers (HEPO) and Barangay Health Workers (BHW) to carry out social mobilization activities and correct vaccine misinformation and disinformation.
Online town hall meetings are being held via various virtual platforms to address public queries. Intersectoral and collaborative meetings with different agencies aim to garner support for the immunization program.
To augment health workers, the DOH in Western Visayas is hiring social mobilizers and field HEPOs. They are also deploying doctors, nurses, midwives, nutritionists, dentists, medical technologists, and data encoders to Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Areas (GIDA).
Since 2023, the DOH said it has maintained a sufficient vaccine supply against preventable diseases like tuberculosis, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B, polio, pneumonia, flu, and human papillomavirus (HPV).
Regular vaccine inventories are conducted to avoid supply chain management issues. The DOH ensures regular vaccine forecasting to prevent shortages and wastage due to over-stocking.
With the return of classes this week, the DOH plans to implement school-based immunization to protect children against measles, rubella, tetanus, diphtheria, and HPV.
The agency also plans “big catch-up” activities to bridge the gap caused by small and large-scale outbreaks of measles and pertussis that result in low immunization coverage.
