After the Department of Health (DOH) confirmed a three-year old from Lanao del Sur contracted polio earlier this week, despite the World Health Organization (WHO) declaring the Philippine eradicated of the disease in 2000, the DOH Center for Health Development-Region VI announced they will be strengthening their routine immunization program.
Medical officer IV, Dr. Renilyn Reyes, explained the department’s “routine immunizations,” which includes doses of the polio vaccine for babies when they turn six weeks old, 10 weeks old, and 14 weeks old.
She added, the regional office is awaiting further instructions from the central office.
“We strongly urge parents, health workers, and local governments to fully participate in the synchronized polio vaccination,” urged DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III after the initial news broke. “It is the only way to stop the polio outbreak and to protect your child against this paralyzing disease.”
“Aside from immunization, we remind the public to practice good personal hygiene, wash their hands regularly, use toilets, drink safe water, and cook food thoroughly,” he added.
According to data from the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), between January 1 and September 20 of this year, a total of 158 cases have been recorded around the world, with most of them concentrated in Afghanistan and across central Africa.
However, there were four cases of a circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV) in Myanmar. This strain of polio refers to a mutation of the virus that develops when under-immunized areas are exposed to the virus that causes polio for an extended period of time.
There was also one cVDPV case recorded in China.
According to the WHO, the world is currently at 99 percent polio eradication. They noted, when the GPEI was founded in 1988, there were approximately 350,000 polio cases reported a year.
They added, only Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan have continued to report cases of polio and are considered “endemic” countries, which means polio is primarily found in these areas. According to WHO, “Polio can spread from these endemic countries to infect children in other countries with less-than-adequate vaccination.”/WDJ