Health officials here have reported that parents refuse to have their children vaccinated against measles, rubella, and polio for various reasons.

Most of the parents’ reasons were due to "the child’s current health condition and their routine immunization status, which are already complete," said Dr. Ina Grace Chiu, the National Immunization Program medical coordinator of the City Health Office (CHO), in an online press briefing on Monday, June 5.

"Of course, we respected the decision of the parents if they didn’t want to submit their children (to the immunization)," Chiu said in the vernacular.

Prior to the start of the Measles-Rubella and Oral Polio Vaccine Supplemental Immunization Activity (MR-OPV-SIA), health officials said that despite the immunization status of the children, they would still be given the vaccines as additional protection against the said viral diseases.

"If they don’t want their children to get vaccinated, it could possibly be that their children will be the first to get sick; they will be the carriers of measles in Cagayan de Oro," Chiu said in vernacular.

The MR-OPVSIA started on May 2 and was supposed to be finished at the end of last month. But the Department of Health extended the activity until June 15 as there are still a lot of eligible children who need to be vaccinated.

As of June 4, Cagayan de Oro has inoculated 47,601 children with measles-rubella vaccines and 56,523 with OPV. However, these are only 75.26 percent and 76.42 percent coverage, respectively, out of the 95 percent target set by the DOH.

This city has a total target population of 63,248 children (nine to 59 months) for measles-rubella vaccines and 73,964 children (zero to 59 months) for OPV.

One of the factors also cited in the failure to achieving the vaccination target was the discrepancy in the target population as the projected population of eligible children provided by the DOH is way too high compared to the actual population in this city.

"If you check our actual population, the discrepancy is big. That’s why we continuously look for all of the children aged zero to 59 months," Chiu said in a mix of English and vernacular.

Nevertheless, the CHO said they continue to look for eligible children and urged parents to help the city government by submitting their suitable children to immunization to enable them to have additional protection against measles, rubella, and polio.

Dr. Rachel Dilla, city health officer, cited a study where only 85 percent of the inoculated children had developed their immune systems to fight these diseases. Therefore, there were 15 percent of them who slowly developed antibodies; hence, booster vaccines are needed.

DOH Undersecretary Beverly Lorraine Ho, who graced the MR-OPVSIA kick-off activity in this city, earlier said the country needs to catch up as it did not achieve the 95 percent target coverage for the last couple of years due to the height of the pandemic, saying that the country only achieved below 65 percent.

On the regional level, according to DOH-Region 10, there were only 74,226 or 68.43 percent fully immunized children in Northern Mindanao last year. This is 8.08 percent lower compared to the 77,033 or 76.51 percent of fully immunized children in the region for the year 2021.

The city government still has not achieved its Covid-19 vaccination coverage targets with only an 81.83 percent coverage for senior citizens, 45.85 percent for the first booster vaccination, and 53.1 percent coverage for children aged five- to 11-years-old as of May 31.

This means that the city still needs to vaccinate more as the DOH set a target of 90 percent vaccination coverage for senior citizens, 50 percent for the first booster vaccination, and at least 70 percent for children aged five- to 11-years-old.

The Covid-19 vaccination program of the city government is still ongoing in CHO and various health centers here.

Source:
courtesy of MANILA BULLETIN

by FRANCK DICK ROSETE

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