DOH starts giving free AH1N1 vaccines

CEBU, Philippines - The Department of Health (DOH)-Region 7 has started to provide free vaccines for protection against the pandemic flu, A(H1N1).

According to Dr. Enrique Sancho, chief of the DOH’s Communicable Disease Section, the immunization program runs from April 26-30, with the supply of “Pandemic AH1N1 2009” vaccines donated by the World Health Organizations to the Philippine government.  

Sancho added that the supply cover at least 9 million doses of vaccines for the country which would cover about 10 percent of the population.

However, due to limited stocks, the health official said that the first priorities are the health care workers and front-liners, followed by the pregnant women. He continued that the third priority are children from 6 months to 5 years old and adults from 60 years old and above, while the fourth are people who are six to 59 years old with chronic illnesses.

 Sancho said that they are more concerned with the health workers because they are the group that is more risky to infection and severe outcome of the disease.

He explained that people who have allergy on eggs are exempted because of the protein content of the vaccines. “The pandemic AH1N1 has something to do with the attachment of protein, so there is adverse reaction and allergy to the vaccine,” he said.

“100 million people worldwide had availed of the vaccines already including the US President himself,” Sancho added. But he clarified that the Philippine government has separated the budget because the problem is the purchase of the vaccines.

The activity is simultaneously done nationwide by health workers, hospitals, rural health individuals. “This is now done everywhere,” he said adding that in Cebu, they have provided 7,000 vaccines to all private and public hospitals here.

According to Sancho, the department has stopped doing the testing on the virus, but it continues monitoring the influenza. “Its mild effect is similar to flu,” said.

After the vaccination, the health official said that they still need to provide ample time for the entire region to check the condition of the persons vaccinated. He added that they still need to do the recording and reporting, the inventory of stocks, assessing the injected ones and evaluate their conditions.

Moreover, he shared that the vaccines will last for a year only, thus, the injected person still need to be vaccinated the next year. “This is a seasonal flu shots, you have to give it very well,” Sancho said.

Sancho is sure that the information about the campaign has been disseminated everywhere because before the exact date of vaccination, the DOH had conducted orientations to all health workers in the entire region.— Dorothy Mae E. Acabo and Sheila Marie E. Catacutan, NORSU Interns/WAB