As the measles death toll reached 136 since Jan. 1, the Anakalusugan party-list group challenged the Department of Health (DOH) to account for how it spent its P7.43-billion budget for its immunization program in 2018.
鈥淭he DOH spent all of its budget last year for immunization,鈥� said Anakalusugan nominee Mike Defensor in a statement.
鈥淏ut by its own admission, its immunization rate in 2018 was only 39 percent. This means more than 2 million children did not get measles vaccination,鈥� he said.
Defensor said the DOH had an advertising budget of P634 million last year.
Info campaign
听
鈥淭hey cannot keep on invoking the vaccination scare brought about by the Dengvaxia mess,鈥� he said.
鈥淭hey should have used the budget to mount a massive information campaign to encourage parents to have their kids vaccinated. It鈥檚 clear there was something amiss,鈥� he added.
Another Anakalusugan nominee, Darlo Ginete, said it was impossible for the health department to have missed the trend of an increase in the number of measles cases.
鈥淚n 2018, DOH reported a total number of 18,407 measles cases,鈥� Ginete said.
鈥淐ompared to only 2,428 cases in 2017, last year鈥檚 figure represents a nearly 800-percent increase in measles cases,鈥� he said.
鈥淗ow could they have not seen that trend?鈥� Ginete added.
Church concern
听
鈥淲hy are they scrambling only now to raise awareness when the numbers were glaringly clear as early as 2018?鈥� he said.
Archbishop Rolando Tria Tirona of Caceres has called on parents to submit their children to vaccination.
In a pastoral letter read in Caceres鈥� 92 parishes last Sunday, Tirona said the only way to address the problem is to have children vaccinated.
鈥淟et not the unfounded fear of the vaccine affect the lives of our children,鈥� Tirona said. 鈥擶ITH A REPORT FROM TINA G. SANTOS