Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista on Thursday backed City Ordinance 2760 that would provide the elderly with free anti-shingles vaccines.
He signed the measure authored by District 3 Councilor Eufemio “Pinggoy” Lagumbay to extend such medical attention to all registered senior citizens in the city.
At least P20 million has been allocated for the vaccination and information dissemination campaign, the mayor noted.
Meanwhile, Quezon City Anti-Drug Abuse Advisory Council said 27,438 drug surrenderers have been profiled in a bid to enhance the responsiveness and effectiveness of its anti-drug campaign.
“When we started the campaign against drugs, we had no idea how many were positive. We did not have data, and we only know which areas were highly affected,” Vice Mayor Joy Belmonte said.
“At least now, with our database, we can more or less see the trend of how many are surrendering per month and we can extrapolate how many we have to rehabilitate,” she added.
The vice mayor is the chairperson of the anti-drug council. The database is being managed by QCADAAC in partnership with barangay representatives and the Quezon City Police District.
“With this information, we can plan better and monitor better our responsiveness. After all, we should first know who these drug dependents are before we address their needs,” Belmonte pointed out.
Anti-shingles vaccines can reduce the risk of developing shingles and the complications associated with it. It can either prevent the shingles from occurring at all or make them less painful when they occur, the ordinance read.
Shingles or herpes zoster is a viral infection whose symptoms include painful skin rashes caused by the varicella zoster virus, the same virus that causes chicken pox. It affects persons 60 years and older.
According to the Office of the Senior Citizens Affairs, the city has 486,284 registered senior citizens as of April 2018.
All of them will receive free anti-shingles treatment every three years.
In another development, the 37-member city council has passed a resolution adopting a mother-baby friendly hospital initiative in all city hospitals.
City Resolution 7615 mandates that every mother and her baby must be protected from unnecessary interventions, practices, and procedures that are not evidence-based and not respectful of culture, bodily integrity and dignity.