DAVAO CITY — The City Health Office (CHO), in partnership with the Department of Health (DoH), conducted the first local summit for the National Immunization Program (NIP) to further strengthen the immunization program in the city.

Barangay officials, doctors, barangay health workers (BHW), representatives from the education sector and other key stakeholders also attended the summit.

Dr. Janis Olavides, family health cluster head of DoH-Davao, bared the challenges in supply and demand that often affects immunization roll-out including the lack of vaccine awareness and misinformation that often promotes vaccine hesitancy.

She added that it is the goal of the DoH to reach a 95 percent full vaccination rate in the whole Philippines.

“We urged the barangay leaders to communicate with their district and BHWs about the status of immunization within their areas of responsibility. We encouraged them to provide necessary support in the immunization roll-out within their barangays.”

The NIP summit aims to promote full immunization of children and adults to control and prevent possible outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs) such as measles, neonatal tetanus, pertussis, rubella and diphteria.

Meanwhile, Dr. Julinda Acosta, technical services division chief of CHO, emphasized the importance of vaccinating children to ensure their healthy growth.

“We anchored our immunization program to the policy statement that immunization is a basic human right of the children, therefore no child shall be deprived of it,” she said.

She added that following the implementation of the immunization program, there was a significant decrease in the cases of vaccine-preventable diseases (VPD).

In Davao City, there have been no cases of diphtheria and rubella since 2023.

There were only two laboratory-confirmed cases of measles in 2023, and one reported case this year.

Eight cases of pertussis were recorded in 2023 and six in 2024.

“We were able to control the outbreak of pertussis in Davao City because of the support of our barangay officials and partners in conducting periodic intensification of routine immunization,” Acosta shared.