BAGUIO CITY (PIA) — The Department of Health – Cordillera is focused in vaccinating against COVID-19 children aged five to eleven (5-11) years old with the consent of their parents especially with the impending face to face classes by next school opening.
Dr. Camille Justine Malinit of the Regional Vaccination Operations Center Technical Team, during the 1st Quarter Regional Implementation Coordination Team meeting, said the current strategy is to boost the implementation by the local government units of the 5-11 years old COVID-19 vaccination through strengthening the collaboration with public and private schools and encourage vaccination for all learners whether attending face-to-face classes or not.
Malinit said they will coordinate with the Department of Education and representatives of the private schools to encourage learners to get vaccinated. They also plan to set up vaccination sites in schools for easier access of learners to vaccines.
It was recommended during the meeting to have a master listing of students through the help of DepEd to identify students who are yet to be vaccinated.
They also encourage the LGUs for the conduct of daily vaccination activities especially for the 5-11 years old population.
“For July onwards, we will also be integrating COVID-19 vaccination into the NIP (National Immunization Program), so we will transition the vaccine to routinely given vaccine,” Malinit added.
Based on DOH CAR data as of May 26, 2022, 60,536 or 24.24% children belonging to the said age group are fully vaccinated while 74,339 or 29.76% are vaccinated with first dose. The number of unvaccinated is still high with 175,415.
With this, the agency commits to strengthen its campaign to explain the benefits of getting the jab against COVID-19 and to eliminate the doubt because of false information about the vaccine. **JDP/DEG-PIA CAR
