The numbers of recommended vaccine doses administered to children dropped across the Philippines, which health experts fear could lead to an outbreak of other diseases amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

According to Dr. Kim Patrick Tejano, Program Manager of the National Immunization Program of the Department of Health (DOH), the country saw a 7.6 percent decrease in immunization among children in 2020.

"This year has really been a challenge in the aspect of healthcare in the Philippines because of the pandemic, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to challenge our access to essential healthcare, the need to provide people with life-saving vaccines becomes more critical," Tejano underscored during the "Get Vaccinated Pamilyang Bida!" media forum on Wednesday, April 28.

"There is a decreasing trend in our coverage of fully immunized children. In 2015, it's around 70 percent, nitong 2020 it decreased to 61.5 percent," he noted.

Tejano attributed the decrease to COVID-19 pandemic as many parents were reluctant to leave their homes to have their children vaccinated.

"Also many of our health workers in the ground were redeployed in responding to COVID-19, they became contact tracers, swabbers, and those who attend to COVID patients," he added.

Low immunization coverage led to polio, measles outbreaks

In 2019, an outbreak of polio was declared in the Philippines, 19 years after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the country free of the infectious disease.

"As you know po in 2019 we had an outbreak of polio, currently we have 17 cases of polio and so far the last that was reported was in September 2020, so we hope no one will be added to our case ," Tejano said.

"In 2014 and 2019 there outbreaks . Nung (In) 2014 we conducted a measles-rubella supplemental immunization activity to help reduce virus transmission, however, it's insufficient to eliminate the measles. There are still susceptible populations that are accumulating because of our low routine immunization coverage so we failed to achieve immunity among our target populations, hence contributing to the resurgence of our measles cases starting from 2017 to 2019," he added.

Addressing vaccine preventable diseases

The Health department has solutions to prevent vaccine preventable diseases, such as routine catch up immunization and outbreak response immunization activities.

"We wanted to ensure a timely and adequate response if ever an outbreak will occur," Tejano said.

"Immunization is the best prevention against vaccine preventable diseases," he added.

Meanwhile, Dr. Tato Quizon of the DOH Health Promotion Bureau, said the agency released a immunization playbook that "establishes the process of developing Bakuna Champions to address vaccine hesitancy among parents and caregivers based on their local context."

The playbook aims to increase vaccine coverage through routine immunization.

"There's still a significant number of unimmunized children in the Philippines because vaccine hesitancy among parents and caregivers and because of this it continues to place our community at risk for outbreaks. So in the middle of the pandemic, we cannot afford other outbreaks that might compete to overburden resources and put at risk other Filipinos," Quizon said.

"One way to address vaccine hesitancy is through social mobilization by tapping community volunteers," -- can support local health workers in advocating for immunization programs," he added.