THE Philippines is no longer on the list of the top five nations with the highest number of unvaccinated children, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) said.
In a statement tied to World Polio Day today, October 24, the two organizations commended the Philippine government for reducing the number of children without a single dose of vaccine in the country.
They also lauded the success of the school-based immunization program, which aims to vaccinate 4.8 million children enrolled in public schools against measles, rubella, tetanus, diphtheria and human papillomavirus.
From 2020-2022, the Philippines was the fifth country with the highest number of unvaccinated, or zero-dose children, with 1 million children unvaccinated, but according to the WHO-Unicef Immunization Coverage estimates published last year, the country is out of the top 20, with 163,000 children who are yet to be vaccinated.
“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 remains committed to supporting the government and its partners in sustaining this progress so that every child in the Philippines can live a healthy life,” Unicef Philippines Representative Oyunsaikhan Dendevnorov said.
Despite this, the WHO Polio Risk Assessment in 2022-2023 included the Philippines in the list of countries with high-risk polio incidence with 36 weighted risk points, a decrease from 39 weighted risk points.
“Vaccination remains our strongest armor to protect children for life. Together with the Department of Health and partners, our goal is a country and a world where no child is ever paralyzed by polio again, and the infrastructure and systems we’ve built to fight it continue to benefit global health and ensure that children are protected from vaccine-preventable diseases,” WHO Representative Dr. Rui Paulo de Jesus said.
The country had a polio outbreak in 2019, ending in 2021 through increased vaccination. This year, there were pertussis and measles outbreaks.
As of 2023, only 62 percent of eligible children were considered fully immunized or have received three doses of oral polio vaccine, two doses of measles vaccine, and three doses of pentavalent vaccine before they reach 12 months.
Both agencies said that outbreaks of deadly, vaccine-preventable diseases could only end once the coverage rate across vaccine antigens reached 95 percent.
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