BAGUIO CITY – The City Council, during last Monday’s regular session, requested the Department of Health (DOH) and the City Health Services Office (CHSO) to procure anti-flu and anti-pneumonia vaccines for adults and conduct massive vaccination drives through the different district health centers in the city.
In a resolution, the council stated that while the anti-flu and anti-pneumonia vaccines do not prevent infection from Corona Virus Disease COVID) 2019, the same will reportedly shield the body against reported severe complications of the disease.
Further, city legislators claimed that when professionally administered, the said vaccines will help produce anti-bodies to strengthen the immune system of individuals against influenza and pneumonia that are respiratory illnesses that could cause a person to acquire COVID.
The council pointed out that the present state of public health emergency in the country calls for responsive measures to be implemented by concerned government agencies and city governments geared towards protecting the people from infection or reduce the chances of wider infection of the populace.
Health experts claimed the deadly virus reportedly attacks the respiratory system of a person.
The council added that while no vaccine has yet been developed against the contagious virus to date, vaccines such as the anti-pneumonia and anti-influenza which are both respiratory vaccines may help reduce the chances of infection or reduce the risk of infection and morbidity not only in the city but also in other parts of the country.
According to the council, the DOH and the CHSO must aggressively pursue the conduct of massive vaccinations in the different parts of the city to ensure that a greater part of the population will vaccinated with anti-influenza and anti-pneumonia to ensure that they will be spared from being exposed to potential risks of acquiring the deadly virus.
Among the symptoms of COVID include fever, cough, colds, diarrhea, sore throat and loss of appetite.
The city legislative body cited that the conduct of a massive vaccination of qualified individuals in the city’s barangays will be one of the precautionary measures that will combat the spread of the virus while efforts are being done by scientists worldwide to find the appropriate vaccine and medicine that will ensure that people will be spared from being infected with the same.
City legislators also expressed their support to ongoing clinical trials in the different parts of the world in a bid to develop the appropriate vaccine that will prevent the rapid spread of the virus as COVID has now been considered as a global pandemic because of the rapidly increasing number of the world’s population being infected with the same daily.
Health authorities claimed that it will take at least 18 months to develop the needed vaccine that will be released in the market to eventually put a stop in the rapid spread of the virus in almost all countries of the world over the past several months and still counting as the days pass by.
The Philippines is part of the ongoing Solidarity Trial on the vaccines and medicines that have been identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as possible cure for the contagious virus.
By Dexter A. See
