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Starting with improvement

The Philippines recently displayed a marked improvement in its vaccination rate, being no longer among the top 5 countries in the world with the highest number of children who have not been vaccinated against any disease.

From 1 million “zero-dose” kids between 2020 and 2022, the figure for the country significantly went down to 163,000 last year, according to data from the United Nations’ Children’s Fund and the World Health Organization.

The improvement was traced to the success of the government’s public school based immunization program against measles, rubella, tetanus, diphtheria, and the human papillomavirus which targeted 4.8 million students.

Unicef data from 2020 and 2020 had ranked the Philippines fifth behind India, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Ethiopia – among countries worldwide with the highest number of unvaccinated children. However, for 2023, it was outside the top 20.

“Unicef commends the Philippine government’s steadfast dedication to leave no child behind. Its decisive leadership and immediate prioritization of immunization have reaped promising results. This milestone should fuel our resolve to vaccinate even more children, especially those who remain vulnerable to vaccine-preventable diseases like polio, measles, diphtheria, and pertussis,” Unicef Philippines Representative Oyunsaikhan Dendevnorov said in a statement.

However, it must be noted that despite the achievement, the WHO Polio Risk Assessment in 2022 to 2023 still puts the Philippines at high risk, with the last outbreak in the country happening between 2019 and 2021.

The marked improvement in vaccination rate within a short span is certainly an impressive achievement, but it is still far from the ideal and that means Filipinos still have a lot of work and catching up to do. Until then, many more vaccine preventable diseases will continue to threaten our population, making outbreaks that could’ve been stopped a constant threat.*

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