Unicef, WHO, DoH lead regular routine immunization drives

The Department of Health (DoH), in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), launched "Chikiting Bakunation Days," an annual vaccination drive that aims to reach at least one million children who have missed out and are yet to receive any routine vaccine on World Immunization Week 2022.

More than half of the vaccine-eligible children born during the Covid-19 pandemic — around 1.4 million children — have not had a single vaccine. However, even before the pandemic, the Philippines was among the top 10 countries in the world that constitute a great number of under vaccinated or unvaccinated children. With the Chikiting Bakunation Days, which will run every last week of the months of April to June 2022 nationwide, vaccines against polio, measles, hepatitis B, pneumonia, and other vaccine preventable diseases (VPDs) will be administered.