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THE National Anti-Poverty Commission said Sunday that the government
has allocated nearly half a billion pesos for 2008 to assure the
healthy future of millions of infants and toddlers in the country.
Anti-poverty Secretary Domingo Panganiban
said the government has allotted some P484 million for a massive
program to provide children from low-income families with free
immunization against diseases.
“This DOH [Department of Health] program,
which will mainly benefit children from poor and low-income
families, is in line with President [Gloria] Arroyo’s commitment
to secure a bright and healthy future for all Filipino children,”
Panganiban said.
Panganiban said the Expanded Program on
Immunization (EPI) of the Health department will ensure that all
Filipino children are immunized against tuberculosis, diphtheria,
pertussis, tetanus, polio and measles.
He said the government’s expanded program
targets children 54 months old and below, and is undertaken through
the support of health workers at the local level.
“The DOH, under the leadership of Secretary
Francisco Duque [3rd], reports that the EPI regularly reaches around
94 percent of the country’s barangays. In some cases, local health
workers go door-to-door to ensure that all children within a given
area are properly immunized and protected,” Panganiban said.
The program includes the distribution of Vitamin
A capsules and deworming tablets, as well as health education,
public information and social mobilization services.
A report from the Health department’s Health
Policy Development and Planning section to the Anti-poverty body
shows that the government had allocated some P445 million for the
program in 2007.
The report also showed that more than eight
million children received vaccines against the measles through the
program in 2007.
The Anti-poverty body is the lead monitoring
agency of the Arroyo administration’s pro-poor programs.
-- Ira Karen Apanay
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