By Joseph Bernard A. Marzan
Western Visayas has reported an alarming increase in pertussis cases, totaling 89 this year, as confirmed by the Department of Health’s regional office on April 3.
Health officials attribute this surge to the region’s decline in child vaccination rates, but they assured the public that measures are being taken to control the situation.
The Department of Health-Western Visayas Center for Health Development (DOH-WVCHD) held a virtual press briefing on Wednesday to address the disease, which has commonly spread among children who have neither received nor completed their routine childhood vaccinations.
Their reported pertussis case log between January 1 to April 1 included 22 confirmed cases, 46 probable cases, and 21 negative cases, and excludes 5 deaths in Iloilo province.
Iloilo also tops the greatest number of confirmed pertussis cases in the region (12), followed by Iloilo City (1) and Negros Occidental (1). It also leads figures in probable cases (20), followed by Negros Occidental (7), Capiz and Iloilo City (5 each), Antique and Bacolod City (4 each).
So far, 16 cases in Iloilo province have yielded negative results for pertussis, while Iloilo City had 3, and Antique and Capiz each have 1.
Aklan is the only province in the region that has not logged any pertussis cases, with 0 in either confirmed, probable, or negative cases.
Majority of the reported pertussis cases were female (43 cases) with most of them aged between 15 weeks to 1 year old.
The DOH regional office’s National Immunization Program (NIP) coordinator, Dr. Jose Martin Atienza, noted that the age range of all reported cases spanned from 21 days to 27 years, with a median age of 4 months old.
“It is worthy to note that there is an increase of cases among 7 to 10 weeks old children because it is only around this age that they would be inoculated by pentavalent vaccines,” Atienza said.
The Iloilo Provincial Health Office (IPHO) also confirmed to the media via Messenger that the 5 deaths in the DOH’s data include 3 confirmed cases, 1 each from Bingawan, Dumangas, and San Joaquin, while the rest were 1 suspect case from Ajuy and 1 probable case from Miagao.
Atienza said that the regional office conducted virtual town hall meetings with health center personnel, school officials, teachers, Health Education Promotion Officers, and parents or guardians, regarding basic information on pertussis and how it may be prevented.
DOH-WVCHD director Adriano Suba-an said during the presser that out of the 22 confirmed cases, 5 were unvaccinated, 3 received only 1 dose of the pentavalent vaccine, and 1 was fully-immunized.
The director admitted that the rise in pertussis cases in the region was due to low immunization rates, attributing it to the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic from 2020 to 2022.
“Unfortunately, immunization coverage has taken a drastic turn as the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country. Furthermore, most of the health workers in the health facilities were overburdened by the workload since they served as vaccinators for routine immunization in children and COVID-19 vaccination at the same time,” Suba-an said in a statement he read during the online presser.
Atienza also stated that the regional office has run out of pentavalent vaccines for children since January, as all of their stocks have been allocated among provincial and city health offices.
He added that the quantity available in each Rural Health Unit (RHU) may vary, and is primarily aimed at the regular routine vaccination of early-aged children under the NIP.
“Based on our inventory stocks [of pentavalent vaccines], there are varying statuses of stocks in each RHU. There are RHUs which have more stocks, while there are also those which have just a sufficient amount within their cold rooms,” Atienza said.
“In general, the pentavalent vaccines that are in the RHUs are only intended for the vaccination of children for routine immunization. These are children aged 6 weeks, 10 weeks, and 14 weeks, who must receive 3 doses of pentavalent vaccines. If there are excess with the RHUs, these are minimal and may only be used for localized outbreak response in the barangay level,” he also explained.
Suba-an allayed fears, advising the public “not to be alarmed, but to be more familiar and alert with the signs and symptoms [of pertussis.]”
The DOH on August 1 last year issued Department Memorandum No. 2023-0284, which contains the Interim Guidelines on the Prevention, Detection, Isolation, Treatment, and Reintegration (PDITR) Strategy and Outbreak Response for Pertussis and Diphtheria.
The DOH-WVCHD has also coordinated with its counterparts in the Regional Inter-Agency Task Force (RIATF) for Infections diseases, including the Department of the Interior and Local Government, Department of Education, Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD-6), Philippine Information Agency, Office of Civil Defense (OCD-6), National Irrigation Administration, and Philippine National Police, as well as the Philippine Pediatric Society.
