Society produces 150,000 leaflets
for national anti-measles campaign

MANILA, Philippines — A campaign led by the Department of Health (DoH) in the Philippines which is designed to eradicate measles from the country in the next four years is receiving energetic support from the Philippine Bible Society (PBS).

Last month the campaign, named Ligtas Tigdas, meaning ‘Free from Measles’, resulted in a nationwide child immunisation program. Teams from the DoH and other government agencies set up temporary vaccination clinics in residential areas, schools and daycare centres as well as hospitals and health centres all over the country.

The program targeted children from nine months to eight years old, of whom there are reckoned to be around 29 million in all in the country.
The current initiative follows a DoH campaign of 1998 – the first measles elimination campaign in the Western Pacific region.

As its contribution to the latest program, PBS printed 150,000 information leaflets on Ligtas Tigdas. A cartoon on the cover shows a caped and masked crusader carrying two children to safety from measles. The PBS delivered 100,000 of the leaflets to the DoH at a formal ceremony at the DoH headquarters in Manila on January 26. It is also distributing a further 50,000 copies to partner churches and organisations. Last year PBS supported the government’s anti-Sars campaign by providing 100,000 information leaflets.

Agreement