Vaccinators have already covered 89 percent or 526 out of the 590 barangays of Antique for the measles-rubella, oral polio vaccine supplemental immunization activity (MR-OPV-SIA).

“We only have remaining 64 barangays for the vaccination program,” said Dr. Leoncio Abiera, Jr., Provincial Health Officer 1 of the Integrated Provincial Health Office (IPHO) in an interview, Wednesday.

Antique targets to vaccinate 57,041 nine to 59 months old children for MR and 66,616 zero to 59 months old for OPV for the whole month of February under the “Chikiting Ligtas” campaign.

He said that as of Feb. 15, they have vaccinated 31,819 children for MR and 37, 581 for OPV.

Abiera added that there is already a team from the Department of Health conducting the Rapid Coverage Assessment (RCA) to validate reports of municipalities that have completed their vaccination.

“The RCA is making sure that there are no more children who had been missed out during the vaccination,” he said.

The RCA is conducting house-to-house visitation to check on the status of the children in the households.

The towns that have already reported to have completed vaccination program are Caluya, Culasi, Hamtic, Pandan, Patnongon, and Sebaste.

“We are urging parents to already bring their children who have not yet been vaccinated to the Rural Health Centers and in their Barangay Health Stations already,” he said.

He said the “Chikiting Ligtas” will only be until the end of February, thus, they should already be vaccinated for their protection.

“We do not want that there will be resurgence of the polio in the province,” he said.

He said that Antique had already zero cases of polio since 2018 and they want to maintain the status.

As for measles, the province reported two cases last January. (PNA)