Philippines among countries with low vaccination rate for kids —WHO

The Philippines is one of the top countries with the most number of unvaccinated children globally,  an official of the  World Health Organization (WHO) said Monday.

Dr. Robert Kezaala, medical officer on Vaccine-Preventable Diseases (VPD) said nearly all countries around the world experienced a drop in their immunization rate due to the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting the international health body to encourage governments to boost their vaccination programs.

"The Philippines is one of the ten countries with the most unvaccinated children in the whole world. And that's why we're working very hard with the Philippines to make sure that it gets back to coverage of over 80% to 90%,” he said at the kick-off of the Department of Health's (DOH) 10-day catch-up immunization drive against VPDs for children in Taguig City on Monday.

Dubbed "Vax-Baby-Vax”, the  DOH Metro Manila Center for Health Development rolled out the immunization program which aims to vaccinate around 137,000 infants aged 0 to 23 months versus VPDs such as polio, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, and hepatitis B.

Kezaala said the Philippines has been "vaccinating very well" prior to the pandemic.

"There have been challenges particularly in the last two years with the pandemic. Many children missed vaccination. For that reason, fully vaccinated children went too low," he said.

"We estimate that up to 1.6 million have not received a single vaccine.  This is unacceptable," he added.

The WHO official said the country needs to double its efforts to convince more parents to have their kids vaccinated, including going to the villages and countering rumors about immunization on social media.

Last month, DOH officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire warned against an impending measles outbreak in 2023 due to the low complete immunization coverage among Filipino children.

Vergeire said there are 62.9% fully immunized children in the country, which is still far from the government’s target of 95%.

She attributed the low routine immunization coverage in the country to the vaccine hesitancy of the parents and the COVID-19 lockdowns which restricted them from having their children vaccinated.

To address this, the official said the Health Department met with its implementing units to strengthen routine immunization in the country.—LDF, GMA News