COA: DOH's school-based vaccination programs fall short of target

The Department of Health (DOH) has failed to reach the target coverage for two school-based immunization programs, the Commission on Audit (COA) said Monday.

According to a "24 Oras" report, the target coverage of DOH's measles rubella and tetanus diphtheria vaccination program was at 95 percent which is in line with the principles of the so-called "herd immunity."

The program was intended for Grade 1 and Grade 7 students.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines "herd immunity" as a "situation in which a sufficient proportion of a population is immune to an infectious disease, through vaccination or prior illness, to make its spread from person to person unlikely."

Records from COA showed that in 2016, 1.065 million or 64 percent of the enrolled Grade 1 students were not vaccinated with tetanus-diphtheria vaccine. The vaccine was also not administered to 63 percent of enrolled Grade 7 students or a total of 998,000 students.

The COA pointed out that the number of those vaccinated with tetanus-diphtheria vaccine went down by almost half in 2016.                         

                         2015                    2016

Grade 1            73 percent           36 percent

Grade 7            72 percent           37 percent

Meanwhile, COA records also showed that the target for measles-rubella vaccine was not met even though there was an increase in the number of students who had received the vaccine:

                           2015                    2016

Grade 1            60 percent           72 percent

Grade 7            72 percent           72 percent

The failure to meet the target was due to the delay of purchasing the said vaccines and the policy that children will not be allowed to receive the vaccine without their parents' consent as ordered by the Department of Education. — Anna Felicia Bajo/BAP, GMA News