The health department reported that the Philippines ranks fifth among twenty countries with the highest number of zero-dose children who must be vaccinated with the prescribed vaccines for them to be completely immunized.
Based on the presentation of the government’s national immunization program, the Philippines is behind India, Nigeria, Indonesia and Ethiopia.
Further, the Philippines has the highest number of zero-dose children from 2019-2022 in the Western Pacific region.
On the other hand, the Philippines reportedly contributed the highest burden of measles cases globally in the last five years and that the country had the highest number of diphtheria antitoxin vitals dispatch during the said period.
Earlier, the World Health Organization (WHO) disclosed that approximately 67 million children globally should be immunized from 2023 to 2025 to be back on track in achieving the desired 95 percent vaccination rate among children for them to be spared from contracting severe infection due to vaccine preventable illnesses.
The health department recently embarked on a 3-pronged approach from 2023 to 2025 to be able to be back on track in the implementation of the national immunization program pursuant to the mandate of the WHO where it will be focused on catch up and restoration of all the vaccination programs in 2023 and the strengthened initiative by 2025 to ensure that vaccination will be back on track by 2030.
Under the WHO catch up program, 47 million children from all countries must be vaccinated during the said period while under the restore initiative, some 16 million children from 15 countries should be vaccinated and under the strengthen strategy by 2025, there should be some 4 million from all countries that should be vaccinated.
Health authorities pointed out that the catch up program intends to reach children who missed vaccination during 2020-2022 or at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, some of which was due to the implementation of various community quarantine restrictions that included the 2019 zero-dose and under immunized children as part of the accumulated susceptible cohort.
To restore vaccination programs, the health department should immediately restore vaccination coverage back to the 2019 coverage levels while in the strengthened initiatives, the government should strengthen immunization systems within primary health care to improve program resilience and resume the trajectory of the immunization 2030 goals and targets.
Among the ongoing strategies embraced by the health department in relation to the agency’s 8-point agenda include equitable access through alternative sites for service delivery through the implementation of comprehensive primary care for all, opportunistic immunization in primary care encounters and settings such as schools, work place, community; alternative fixed or mobile sites for outreach; private sector engagement and use of culturally appropriate practices; strengthen local government involvement and leadership; resolve stock-out issues; address cold chain constraints; continuous quality improvement; electronic logistics management information systems; electronic vaccination records; use of data for decision-making; increase functional health literacy; build healthy and enabling settings; combat mis and disinformation; protect health care workers from vaccine preventable diseases; address knowledge gaps and health care workers support.
Other ways forward in the implementation of the national immunization program are focused on enabling legislation; expansion plan of program for adolescents and adults; vaccine self-reliance and local manufacturing capacity and make immunization among priority commitments of the health department.
The national immunization program was presented by health authorities during the recently concluded Seminar-Workshop on Injecting Hoe Catch Up Vaccination and the Life Course Immunization which was spearheaded by the Philippine Press Institute (PPI), the national association of newspapers, in partnership with Pfizer Philippines, the Pharmaceutical and health Care Association of the Philippines (PHAP), the Philippine Medical Association (PMA), the Philippine Alliance of Patient Organizations (PAPO) and the Philippine Foundation for Vaccination, Inc. (PFVI). By Dexter A. See
