50 years of life-saving immunization

One life every six minutes. According to a study published by the Lancet, one of the world's most prominent academic journals, that is how many lives vaccination has saved for the past fifty years – an estimated 154 million, with infants making up a significant majority of it at 101 million.

Such is the triumph of the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) that is credited with the complete eradication of smallpox in 1980, a monumental achievement that was secured only six years after the initiative was established by the World Health Organization (WHO). Today, every country, including ours, has a national immunization program. The Department of Health established our own Expanded Program on Immunization in 1976.

As the EPI marks its 50th year, I had the remarkable opportunity to be a part of our country's commemoration of this important health initiative as a returning moderator for this year's Health Connect Webinar. As a long-time advocate of health and the objectives of immunization, it was a pleasure to be amid our country's leaders, experts, and key stakeholders in public health, discussing effective collective action at the Health Connect Media Forum, a platform by the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines (PHAP).

Among the key objectives laid out by Mr. Teodoro Padilla, PHAP's Executive Director, for Health Connect was to "strengthen collaboration among stakeholders and improve vaccination coverage rates of vaccine-preventable diseases." Admittedly, there is much to be done – according to 2023 data, we are at 62.3% coverage and the target is 95%. The discussions that followed from the attendees emphasized the need for health literacy and education.

I believe the media plays an important role in the whole-of-society approach to promote the level of health literacy in our country. Indeed, we are uniquely positioned to effectively disseminate accurate and timely information in educating and protecting our community. 

Dr. Fatima Gimenez shared with the group stories from the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) that illustrated where our efforts can be best applied and would be truly appreciated. According to data