Philippines: Loren laments diminishing vaccination coverage of Filipino children

Legarda said that since the devolution of basic health services to LGUs was mandated by law, there is now a need to review and assess whether the same should once again be made the responsibility of the national government, if only to force the latter to provide bigger allocations for public health spending.

“The ideal is for the LGUs and the national government to work hand in hand. This may be happening, but the effort is not good enough,” she said.

Many LGUs complain that they simply do not have the resources to provide public health support, while some financially able LGUs had been criticized for lacking the commitment to ensure the good health of their constituents.

Legarda said that even the 68.9 percent FIC coverage may be suspect due to the fact that FIC definition in the country covers only a handful of vaccine-preventable diseases.

“There are so many other diseases that are not covered by our vaccination program. So, it’s not like fully immunized children or FIC, under our definition, are really fully immunized in the strict sense,” she said.

Pneumonia remains the leading cause of death for infants and children ages one to four years old, at 2 per 1,000 live births and 37.76 per 100,000 children.

Other vaccine preventable diseases also rank high among morbidity and mortality causes among infants and children. \

IMPORTANT NOTICE: INBOX is an archive of press releases, statements, announcements, letters to the editors, and manifestos sent to PinoyPress for publication. Please email your materials to pinoypress @ gmail.com. PinoyPress is not responsible for the content of these materials. The opinion expessed in these items does not reflect those of PinoyPress and its staff. Please refer to our terms of use/disclaimer.