DOH to vax 31,000 people in Samar for Int’l Immunization Week
The Department of Health said it will vaccinate some 31,000 individuals in Samar. File photo. AFP
MANILA, Philippines — Around 31,000 children, seniors and pregnant women are set to be vaccinated against various diseases in Calbayog, Samar, said the Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday.
The DOH said the vaccination drive will be conducted from April 24 to 30 in line with the World Immunization Week.
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Children aged 0–12 months will receive vaccines for tuberculosis, polio, pneumonia, measles, mumps, rubella, and the pentavalent vaccine.
Senior citizens, on the other hand, will get flu and pneumonia shots, while girls aged 9-14 will receive the HPV vaccine, and pregnant women the Tetanus-Diphtheria vaccine.
According to the DOH, the week-long initiative emphasizes the importance of collective action to ensure more Filipinos—especially children—are protected against vaccine preventable diseases.
“Vaccination is a cornerstone of the DOH’s 8-Point Action Agenda. Towards Universal Health Care, we continue to engage local leaders, parents, health workers, and partners to build a strong and resilient immunization system, where the promise of improved vaccination coverage rates is realized, and more lives across life stages are protected from vaccine-preventable diseases,” said DOH Secretary Teodoro Herbosa in a statement.
Sustained, intensified vaccination efforts needed
Meanwhile, in a joint statement with the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and World Health Organization (WHO), the DOH said sustained and intensified efforts—both on the local and national level—continue to be crucial in ensuring that every Filipino is vaccinated.
Unicef Philippines, for its part, warned that even with the improvements over the past few years, “decades of hard-won progress in immunization would be lost without sustained action and funding.”
It added that preventing outbreaks means vaccine coverage must reach at least 95 percent of the eligible population for all vaccines.
According to the DOH, “zero-dose children” in the Philippines have decreased to 163,000 in 2023—compared to over a million from 2020 to 2021.
As of February 2025, the DOH said it has fully immunized a total of 1,542,282 out of the 2,392,392 aged 0-12 months in the Philippines; while the coverage for the Pneumococcal Polysaccharide Vaccine (PPV) remains at 66 percent among eligible indigent senior citizens, while the influenza vaccine has reached 65.57 percent of the eligible population.
