Against vaccine-preventable

diseases, get kids protected

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, (PIA)—Bohol heath authorities urge parents especially of kids from 45 days old infants to 23 months old to get their free vaccinations available from rural health units, lying in clinics and hospitals, to protect the baby from vaccine preventable diseases.

Speaking at the Kapihansa PIA to announce the opportunity to get free vaccines in time for the World Immunization Week April 24-April 30, Provincial Health Office’s National immunization program Coordinator MacchiaveliaLuidaCaliao and Health Education Promotion Officer Fritzie Olaguir, agreed that getting kids immunized has saved over 150 million lives in the last 5 decades.

Within the week, Rural Health Centers, medical and health facilities and barangay health workers make themselves available for giving out the vaccines, often going to specific areas far from the medical facility, to deliver the service.

Getting the campaign up again after 2024 left Bohol with only 53.6 percent accomplishment in fully immunized children until two years old, of the 28,141 kids up for immunization.

Both hope that this year brings a good increase in immunization.

Key among the vaccine preventable diseases that can get to kids and potentially kill them is measles, and getting measles vaccines has saved 60% of lives.

Depending on the immunization status of the mother giving birth, an infant, before getting discharged from the birthing center, should have received his first vaccines: Bacillus Calmette–Guérin vaccine (BCG).

BCG is a vaccine primarily used against tuberculosis. In countries like the Philippines where tuberculosis or leprosy is common, one dose is recommended in healthy babies as soon after birth as possible, for sure protection.

Together with BCG is Hepatitis B, the first of three injections happen within 24 hours after birth and this prevents Hepatitis B virus infection, which is a common cause of liver disease and cancer.

Parents, before discharge from the birthing facility, has to make sure that the baby has received these free vaccines, which forms the first protection a child gets as soon as he leaves the facility.

While humans are born to develop a system of defenses against diseases, vaccines are crucial for in stimulating the body's immune system to recognize and fight off specific disease-causing germs, viruses and bacteria, preventing or reducing the severity of illness, explains Caliao, who is also a registered nurse.

Vaccination helps save lives by preventing millions of deaths each year and greatly reduces the risk of serious illness, particularly in vulnerable populations like infants and those with compromised immune systems, she added.

Babies, owing to their being cute and huggable, earn the envy of adults who want to cuddle and kiss the newborn, inadvertently exposing the baby to pathogens brought by adults from their workplaces.

After six weeks, the baby should be back in the facility for the first of the pentavalent vaccines, Caliao reminds.

A pentavalent vaccine or simply penta vaccines is a 5 in 1 combination vaccine that protects against five different diseases: diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), tetanus, hepatitis B, and Hemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), to simplify immunization schedules and improve vaccine up-take.

The penta vaccines have to be taken in four doses, the schedules of which are available at the serving facility,Olaguir added.

When the baby gets two months, the next vaccine he should get is Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV), the second dose of which is to be taken by the fourth month and third dose by the sixth month of the baby.

Between the 8th month and the 16th month of the baby, the OPV is given and the final dose of Inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV).

All of these vaccines should have been given between 1 month and a half to the baby’s 23 months, other wise the child would not be fully immunized. (PIABohol)

GET THEM PROTECTED. Nurse MacchiaveliaLuidaCaliao and Fritzie Olaguir brings PangkalahatangBakuna, Kayang-kaya, to ensure that people are getting protected from vaccine preventable diseases to Kapihan. Expanded accessibility to essential vaccines gets to be the focus this week: World Immunization Week. (PIABohol)