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A few weeks ago we told you about the adjustments in doses that were made to the HPV vaccines, and the educational awareness campaigns the ministry has invested in to increase vaccine numbers across the board.
And childhood vaccines have been trending up after a post COVID downturn. Dr Diaz Musa told us more about the work that they are doing to increase vaccinations among children.
Dr. Melissa Diaz, Director, Public Health and Wellness
"Over the last year our childhood vaccine that have fallen like many other countries were, we have almost gotten back up to a high level. Now this is not saying that there aren't skepticism when it comes to vaccines and that we don't have people in country who are fearful about vaccines but I'm saying that all in all when we analyze the information we had a very good uptake of our covid vaccines and we are working triple hard this time to try to get our babies and children's numbers up. For instance the main vaccine that is slightly lower than what is expected is the polio vaccine and that is already being increased. The ministry of health over the last year we have really tried to work significantly with communities doing more outreach, we have changed the way we would want to sit down in our clinics and wait for patients we are going out now. You may have heard now that we are doing a lot of this healthy caravan initiative workplace wellness. Wellness in school's so we are now going out to the population and I think that covid showed us that as well that we can do a lot more work under tree's under tents in community centers so that we can improve access to care and of course that we need to promote primary care and public health initiatives, clean water and sanitation these things to prevent illnesses and to prevent that burden and secondary care. "
Since 2022, 92% of children in Belize have received their BCG vaccines.
