BORONGAN CITY, July 11, 2019–The Department of Health (DOH) last July 3, encouraged mothers and caregivers to avail of this year’s school-based immunization (SBI) which aims to provide measles and rubella vaccination for public school learners.
The school-based immunization is the health department’s strategy for reaching older children and adolescents as well as a catch-up opportunity for those children who have missed their scheduled vaccination.
According to DOH Provincial Officer Dr. Jean Marie Egargo, the school-based immunization gives opportunity to all health workers to show the public the importance of vaccination.
To recall, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III announced last February a measles outbreak in the National Capital Region (NCR) and in parts of Visayas, reiterating his appeal for parents to have their children vaccinated amid the Dengvaxia scare.
“Through the efforts of the DOH and our health workers to make sure that every children in the community were vaccinated, we were able to neutralize the outbreak and recover the public’s trust,” Dr. Egargo said.
Public health nurses and select school nurses in the region will be briefed this July 22 at the Provincial Health office before the immunization program kicks-off this August.
The school-based platform plans to provide vaccination and doses of tetanus-diphtheria to a total of 9, 913, 032 learners enrolled in Kindergarten to Grade 7 nationwide.
School-based immunization was first piloted in 2013 in selected provinces and cities nationwide and became a yearly event when August was declared as School-Based Immunization Month in 2015. (Nikko Bajado / ESTE News)
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