2.4m Philippine infants to be immunized against pneumonia for free

The Philippine government will provide free immunization against pneumonia to 2.4 million infants between six months and 11 months old, a senior official said here Wednesday. Philippine Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Enrique Ona said that the introduction of the Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine ( PCV) to the Philippine vaccination program for infants is another milestone to the DOH Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI). The first recipients of the free vaccine will be the 333,000 infants residing in the provinces and cities of Caraga Region and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), both in southern Philippines, he said. He said these infants represent 14 percent of the 2.4 million target infants nationwide. "This is part of our goal to achieve better health outcomes and meet our health-related Millennium Development Goals by strengthening existing public health programs, such as expanding immunization interventions," Ona said. According to the Philippines Health Statistics of 2010, pneumonia ranked as the second leading cause of infant mortality, accounting for 2,628 deaths in the year.