CEBU CITY, March 9 (PIA) -- The United States Embassy in the Philippines Chargé d’Affaires (CDA) ad interim Heather Variava graced the launching of the BIDA Kid Covid-19 prevention campaign together with Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama and representatives from the Department of Health Central Visayas Center for Health Development (DOH CVCHD) and Department of Education (DepEd) on March 8 at Ayala Center Cebu.
Variava said the BIDA Kid is a follow-up to the BIDA Solusyon Covid-19 awareness campaign, which has equipped over 100 million Filipinos with the right information to protect themselves and help mitigate the spread of the virus.
She said this new campaign focuses on helping children and their families return to school and other face-to-face activities by reminding them to practice the four key Covid prevention habits: wear a mask, keep hands clean, keep distance, and provide adequate circulation and airflow.
The BIDA Kid campaign is being rolled out nationwide by the DOH, DepEd, and other partners.
Variava said assisting the Philippines in the COVID-19 response is the US government's top priority, adding that US provided the country with over P1.9 billion in aid to address the pandemic.
The US government, through the US Agency for International Development, or USAID, has been working with local counterparts in Cebu City in support of Covid-19 response, having trained nearly 200 Barangay Health Emergency Response Teams to strengthen risk communications and community engagement, she added.
“I am proud to report that our joint efforts to disseminate accurate prevention, treatment, and vaccination messages have reached more than 1 million Cebuanos,” Variava said.
In her speech, she added, “We also enhanced 14 community isolation units that served more than 10,000 individuals at the peak of the pandemic and supported the establishment of nine fixed and 90 pop-up vaccination sites in partnership with the Emergency Rescue Unit Foundation and the DOH CVCHD.”
These interventions, Variava said, have helped Cebu City manage more than 53,000 cases recorded since March 2020 that have since declined to 712 active cases as of the end of February.
"We are also proud to have supported the city as it reached the impressive milestone of fully vaccinating 92 percent of its eligible population," she said.
Variava said they will continue to support the city's intensified COVID-19 response and vaccination efforts through sustained engagement of volunteer health professionals, deployment of more mobile vaccination teams, and launching of a mobile application to monitor any cases of adverse events following immunization.
"We are happy to mention that we have recently expanded our assistance to the cities of Lapu-Lapu and Mandaue, and select municipalties of Cebu Province," she added. (ICD/PIA)
