The Department of Health is proud and called the start of the COVID-19 vaccination of the Philippines for children aged five to 11 a great success, something that came to light on Monday.
It will be recalled that various local government units in Metro Manila used many gimmicks to entice the little ones to inject yesterday. Some of those are children’s party themes, free chocolate, candy, etc., in addition to building vaccination centers in zoos.
“We have a total of 9,784 children five to 11-years-old that were already inoculated or given the vaccine kahapon ano,” said Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, Tuesday.
“So nakita natin naging maganda talaga ‘yung turnout. And you know what, ang ating vaccination sites… officials, local governments, private sector really prepared kasi mga bata ito eh… Lahat po ng kailangan nating mga gimmicks, ginawa rin po.”
The DOH insists that such styles are suitable so that children will not be afraid of the injection, especially since no one cried like that at the vaccinations yesterday.
Some of the vaccination sites are full of children’s decorations, balloons, etc., which is why the toddlers are said to be comfortable.
“Lahat po ng ganito ay nakita natin and it worked well… One measure of success, hindi talaga ‘yung bilang eh pero ‘yung tiwala na ibinigay ng mga magulang,” Vergeire added.
DOH boasts successful pediatric vaccination
It is also interesting that some parents are relieved to see that the children are included in the number of those who will receive protection from COVID-19, which has spread to 3.61 million and killed 54,538 in the Philippines.
As many as 2 million children aged five to 11 have been vaccinated with at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in Canada, while there are 100,000 in Singapore.
According to the DOH, one in five children aged five to 11 (8 million) in the United States is currently receiving such drugs.
Of the 8.7 million children vaccinated from said age group worldwide, 97.5% showed no reaction, only 2.4% showed mild reactions, while only 0.00013% had myocarditis or pericarditis.
The Philippines targets 15.56 million children from that age group to be vaccinated, while about 500,000 young people from four regions have been registered since February 7.
Of the 9.2 million Filipinos aged 12-17 who have been vaccinated, it is said that no deaths have been reported so far as a reaction to the drug.
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