AS Cagayan de Oro City reached past the 100,000 mark in total vaccinations last April 15, the vaccination rates for both seniors and five-to-15 years old are still below targets, a top official of the City Health Office (CHO) said.
“We already have 45.56 percent coverage of booster shots which is below the mandated 50 percent target. Of the (remaining) 5,261 seniors in the city that didn’t receive the first two primary shots, we only added 339 seniors, or 81.81 percent (since the vaccination began). Our target is still 90 percent among the seniors,” said Dr. Ina Grace Chiu, CHO’s national immunization program coordinator.
Dr. Chiu disclosed this during yesterday’s ‘City Health Watch’ program hosted by the City Information Office as the city’s active Covid-19 cases are pegged at 119 as of 10 pm on April 15 based on CHO data.
The 119 active cases included six new cases or four index cases admitted in the city’s private and public hospitals and two patients confined in the city’s isolation facilities.
One of the two is an APOR or authorized person outside of residence. As far as the city’s vaccination coverage for children aged five years to 11 years old is concerned, Dr. Chiu said they’ve administered the primary two shots to 37,869 out of the remaining 71,432 children in the city.
“This translates to 53 percent while our target for the five-to-11 years old is 70 percent,” she said.
Since Mayor Rolando ‘Klarex’ Uy assumed office on July 1, 2022, Dr. Chiu said the city vaccinated 103,052 Kagay-anons as of April 15.
“One of the reasons why Covid-19 is still around is because we need to boost our vaccination coverage. The remaining number who still refuse to be vaccinated or boosted have their reasons and so we cannot force them to receive their free shots,” Dr. Chiu said.
She said City Hall still has one vaccination site at the Limketkai Mall that’s open from 9 am to 4 pm except on holidays and at their CHO main office that’s open from 8:30 am to 4 pm Mondays to Fridays.
City Hall continues to sustain its Covid-19 vaccination campaign as City Hall readies its calendar of activities to mark World Immunization Week in the last week of April.
“There are diseases that have no known cure and the solution is immunization…on May, we will launch our campaign for Measles, Rubella, Oral Polio Vaccine Supplemental Immunization Activity (MR OPV SIA) for children aged nine months to five years old.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this campaign slowed down (but now we will intensify its implementation),” CHO health education promotions officer Reagan Abbu said. (Stephen Capillas of City Information Office)
