11% Of Mothers In Manila Refused Polio Vaccines
POLIO – A large number of mothers have refused to give their children polio vaccinations according to Health Assistant Secretary Maria Rosario Vergeire.
In this previous article, we learned that the Philippine government has had trouble convincing parents to vaccinate their children. This was due to the recent dengue immunization program using Dengvaxia.
In relation, according to a report by ABS-CBN, there were a lot of mothers that refused to vaccinate their children for polio. Most of these mothers come from the less privileged sector of society.
Vergeire was interviewed on the Early Edition. She stated that ever since 2016, a lot of mothers already refused vaccination of their children.
According to her, there were even some mothers who don’t believe in these vaccines. She also admitted that there would be controversies, but she was still astonished by the number of mothers that refused.
In the interview, Vergeire mentioned that in the past five years before 2014, the Philippines enjoyed an 80 to 85% vaccine coverage. But right now, the coverage is averaging to 60-66% for the past 5 years, she added.
Last month, the DoH had announced that the country has recorded the first case of polio after 19 years. Recently, a student in Manila had also died due to Diptheria.
Meanwhile, the Philippine government had also declared a national dengue epidemic. Aside from this, there were also cases of measles outbreaks.
According to Vergeire, they conducted an immunization campaign against polio in Manila last month. However, there were about 11% of mothers that didn’t want the vaccine.
She said that these mothers told her that they don’t need the vaccine because they already got their kids vaccinated before. However, Vergeire stressed that the polio vaccine has no side effects and has been used since 1970.
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