Half a million health workers to get H1N1 virus vaccine

Close to half a million Department of Health (DOH) health workers spread throughout the Philippines will start receiving their H1NI virus vaccination this week.

The move is part of the country’s response to the pandemic and serves as a protection against personnel doing vital health-related jobs in remote countryside regions of the archipelago. In a statement, Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral said, “Frontline health workers are at higher risk for getting the disease than ordinary people due to their larger probability of exposure. In addition, they may also transmit the infection to other patients, as well as their families and co-workers, so it is appropriate that they be given priority now that the vaccines are ready for deployment.” Some 420,000 health workers in all levels, both in private and public sectors, would benefit from the endeavor. To facilitate the vaccination, Secretary Cabral said, the first batch of 1.9 million doses of H1N1 vaccine that arrived in March have already been shipped to the different regions after the DOH regional offices and the local government units (LGUs) had been oriented on the program. This vaccination effort came only two weeks after the health department held a one-day National HIV Summit, which brought together representatives from the civil society, national and local government institutions, private businesses, faith-based groups and advocacies, development partners, the academe, and the media. The first batch of vaccines if part of the nine million doses promised by the World Health Organization (WHO) as part the endowment it signed with the Philippines last Nov. 25, 2009 as part of the commitment it made during the 60th Session of the WHO Regional Committee for the Western Pacific in September 2009. Actually, the vaccines come from donations emanating from developed countries and pharmaceuticals. According to WHO Director General Margaret Chan, the endowment is part of the WHO’s pledge to equitably and fairly distribute vaccines to development countries where the number of poor and vulnerable populations is huge. Next of the priority list of the DOH are 2.5 million pregnant women, followed by other priority groups that include children below five years old, senior citizens, and those with chronic medical conditions.