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| Tacloban City is launching a month-long house-to-house vaccination campaign for children under five against measles-rubella and polio with the "Chikiting Ligtas" program. |
TACLOBAN CITY — The local government unit of this city, through the Tacloban City Health Office (TCHO) is set to launch a month-long house-to-house vaccination campaign for children under five years old against measles-rubella and polio.
The campaign, known as the "Chikiting Ligtas" program, is in response to the nationwide supplemental immunization activity of the health department and will run from May 1 to 31, 2023.
According to Dr. Danilo Ecarma, Tacloban City Health Officer, their vaccination strategies will focus on a door-to-door drive, as well as school-based vaccination, to ensure that the eligible target population will be covered this year. This comes after parents' reluctance to bring their babies to the city's district health centers in the past three years, resulting in a low turnout of fully immunized children.
At least 95 percent of the 29,000 children in the city are targeted to receive measles-rubella and polio jabs, with the eligible children for the MR jabs from 9-59 months old, while OPV is for 0-59 months. The health department hopes to vaccinate as many children as possible to prevent the spread of these infectious diseases.
Dr. Ecarma emphasized the importance of vaccination in protecting children's health and urged parents, guardians, and barangays to show support and cooperation during the campaign to avoid the possibility of an outbreak of the aforementioned diseases. —iTacloban (Source: CIO)